Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Miftah Ismail on Saturday said that the government is losing around Rs2,500 million daily due to the economic ‘minefield’ left by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government.
“At the moment the government is losing Rs21 per litre on petrol and Rs52 per litre on diesel. That’s a loss of Rs3600 crore in 2 weeks or a loss of Rs250 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,” Miftah said in a series of tweets.
He added that the decision announced by the government not to change the prices of petroleum products was a tough one and would have to be revisited.
“PTI has tied our hands by actually committing in writing that not only will they recover the full cost of fuels but also impose Rs30 per litre levy and 17 per cent sales tax on those fuels. According to PTI commitments, the price of petrol should be Rs236 [per litre] and diesel should be Rs264 [per litre],” he further said.
He added that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is in no mood to impose such prices and high taxes on the people, but at the same time, we [the government] cannot let our “fiscal and external financial position deteriorate further” and have our development partners walkout.
“Tough choices need to be made,” he warned. “Note also that the 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.”
