THE National Bureau of Statistics does not have heartening news to bring, not with the Sensitive Price Index showing a year-on-year increase of 18.18 percent in the week ending February 4. This has to be seen along with the decision by the ECC to make the national ID card compulsory for purchasing sugar at utility stores, where purchases would be limited to 2 kg per person. Both are proof that the old crises have not yet gone away, and the consumer continues to be jolted by storms that had long been established, and which the government has not only not been able to control, but which it has been responsible for, by its total acceptance of IMF conditionalities, even though it knew, or should have known, from past experience, how onerous they are. The inflation figure is to be ascribed to the recent hikes in the prices of oil products, electricity rates and gas tariffs, which individually were enough to make the consumer scream, but which collectively were back-breaking. The increases in these basic prices were worrisome enough because of the direct increase they meant, but they also are merely an add-on for the manufacturer, who passes on the additional cost to the consumer. It should be noted that the Sensitive Price Index at present only reflects increases in transport costs, while increases in actual manufacturing costs, from higher power rates, have yet to reach the market. The fresh bout of inflation has struck at a time when the causative factor, the global economic crisis, has turned a corner, and the government itself had proclaimed that things were on the upturn. A sign of how the PPP-led government would like to tackle the problem can be seen from the ECC decision, which also is a tacit admission that the present system has been subject to abuses. By making the ID card compulsory, the government is taking a step towards rationing which means the partys workers can be obliged by the grant of a ration depot. Few may remember, but rationing was an important part of the socialist project the PPP embarked on during its first tenure. Though the party, in its desire to grow close to the USA, has abandoned that socialism, much of the mystique it still has depends on that very socialism. And rationing seems a good way to return to it without offending the USA. The government should stop entertaining such schemes, and buckle down to tackling the crises themselves, rather than just the symptoms. It must free itself of the shackles of the IMF, and tackle the real problems of the people without further delay, with taming inflation is a top priority.