Though we live in Pakistan, federal minister defends petrol price hike by comparing to the world

Though we live in Pakistan, the federal minister defends petrol price hike by comparing it to the world.

Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin came out to pacify the public after the petrol price hike by holding a press conference. The Finance minister said that the government has absorbed much of the impact by reducing the petroleum levy.

The federal government on Thursday announced the increase in petroleum product prices for the first 15 days of October 2021, citing an increase in petroleum prices in the international market.

Product	Existing price (per litre)	Increase (per litre)	New price (per litre)
Petrol	Rs123.30	Rs4.00	Rs127.30
High-speed diesel	Rs120.04	Rs2	Rs122.04
Kerosene oil	Rs92.26	Rs7.05	Rs99.31
Light diesel oil	Rs90.69	Rs8.82	Rs99.51

 

Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin on Friday in a press conference in Islamabad, defended the government’s decision. He said that petrol prices in Pakistan were cheaper than the rest of the region and the world, adding that only 16 countries had lower prices — all of them being oil producers themselves.

Accompanied by Minister of State for Information Farrukh Habib, Tarin said: “There are only 16 other countries which have lower petrol prices than ours. They are oil producers and have their own oil.”

The finance minister added that Pakistan had cheaper petrol prices than other regional countries as well, such as India and Bangladesh.

“We are cheaper than the [rest of the] region and the world as well. Do we want to reduce it (petrol price) further? absolutely,” Tarin said.

“We are not even charging [petroleum] levy even though we have kept a target of Rs600 billion for it in the budget. But we and the prime minister didn’t care for it.

“The prime minister said that we can’t burden the people further so this is a signal [about] what feelings the current ruler has for the poor,” the finance minister added.

On the other hand, Pakistanis took to social media to express their disappointment and distress over the government’s decision to increase the petrol price by Rs4 per litre.