Regrettably, from the day PML-N government has come into power, the prices of petroleum products and edible items have remained consistently high and volatile and the inflation has been out of control.
Why don’t the economic experts and financial managers of the incumbent government apply their mind on this very important socioeconomic reality that massive hike in petrol, diesel, and electricity prices will have an adverse effects on inflation, production and employment in the country? Why don’t our rulers, who lead the lives of kings and emperors, try to cut down their own expenses and explore other ways and means to meet their funding deficit? What happened to the cry of austerity before the elections?
With the recent sharp increase in petrol, diesel and electricity prices, the inflation has gone through the roof in Pakistan, making lives of the people miserable. It goes without saying that inflation has a rolling snowball effect on the urban poor, I mean the salaried class people, where the prices that are seen today are higher than they were days before and the salary based incomes fail to rise higher than the price hikes. It is now imperative for the present government not to indulge, in ambitious economic stimulus packages that can pressure it to borrow excess money from the central bank, which, as was the case in the last five years, will easily lead the economy into another daunting inflationary era.
However, the rulers are requested to have mercy on this nation whose purchasing power has been paralyzed within these last couple of months and take various monetary and fiscal measures to tame hyper inflation and strengthen the national economy. Therefore it is proposed that there should be a ban on unnecessary foreign trips at the cost of national exchequer and non-productive activities such as conferences in the five star hotels where millions of rupees are spent on food and lodging but sadly we have no funds for the disaster-hit people in Sindh and Baluchistan!
HASHIM ABRO,
Islamabad, October 1