ISLAMABAD - Rhe federal government is likely to revisit its two decisions of making Saturday as working day at federal level and keeping oil prices unchanged despite massive increase in international market.
Finance Adviser in-waiting Miftah Ismail on twitter said that he would request Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to restore two weekly off days after the month of Ramazan. “Because Ramzaan ul Mubarak has fewer working hours in a day and because we will have many days of Eid holidays. I will request the PM to relook at this decision after Eid. I am hopeful,” said Miftah on Saturday.
Earlier, Shehbaz Sharif soon after assuming office had declared a six-day working week. The employees have also been directed to attend offices at 8am instead of 10am. Now, the federal government has announced to open all public offices, schools, colleges, universities and private banks to remain open on Saturday. However, government’s officials have opposed the decision of the government and announced to stage protest after Eid.
Meanwhile, Miftah Ismail has also said that the government might revisit its decision of not increasing oil prices. “The decision announced last night to continue the existing oil prices was a tough one and will have to be revisited. At the moment the government is losing Rs 21 per litre on petrol and Rs 52 per litre on diesel,” said Miftah, who would likely to be the Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue in Shehbaz Sharif’s Cabinet.
The government on Friday had decided to keep the prices of petroleum products unchanged for next fortnight at the cost of Rs34 billion additional burden on public money, despite Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) had asked for a minimum 14-36 percent increase in prices of various products.
Miftah Ismail said that decision to keep oil prices unchanged would result in a loss of Rs3600 crore in two weeks or a loss of Rs 250 crore per day. “This expense is more than the cost of running the entire civilian federal government plus the entire BISP/Ehsaas programme. We simply cannot afford to walk in the minefield PTI has left for us,” he explained.
He further said that PTI has tied our hands by actually committing in writing that not only will they recover full cost of fuels but also impose Rs30 per litre levy and 17% sales tax on those fuels. According to PTI commitments the price of petrol should be Rs236 and diesel should be Rs264 per litre.
“Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is in no mood to impose such prices plus high taxes on the people. But at the same time we cannot let our fiscal and external financial position deteriorate further and have our development partners walk out. Tough choices need to be made,” he said and added that fuel price subsidy is coming from increasing govt expenses and raising debt.
Unlike BISP where poor people are being helped, here the average (low income) Pakistani is subsidising middle to high income Pakistani. “When a businessman buys 80 litres of petrol for his Land Cruiser the people of Pakistan are gifting me Rs 1680! When an industrialist buys 2000 litres for his generator, Pakistani people pay him Rs 104,000. How is that fair or sustainable,” he concluded.