Former Finance Minister and PPP leader Syed Naveed Qamar said on Tuesday that the unprecedented raise of 74 percent in the electricity tariff for the commercial and industrial sectors would unleash a spiral of overall price hike for the poor people of the country just before the Eid. It is the Eid gift of the PML-N government to the poor people of the country during its two months of government.
He said that the budget of 2013-14, contained clearly that they were going to raise the tariff of petrol and the electricity substantially that would inevitably trigger the prices sharply upward of all goods and services as a consequence because energy was the life line of transport and manufacturing sectors.
He reminded that PML-N had already increased the prices of petroleum products and now of the electricity and therefore poor people of the country would be bracing sky-rocketing of prices and the magnitude of the resultant miseries for the poor people would be both unbearable and unacceptable. Their sermons of rationalisation of tariff at the expense of poor people are a crude joke, he maintained.
He said that the burden of the tariff was always borne by the people who were the end consumers because the industrial and commercial sectors would not continue their business in losses. He said that the government would impose similar tariff to the domestic consumers during the month of October this year that would be another fatal blow to the meagre financial resources of the poor masses that would make them to maintain their subsistence level extremely painful.
He rejected the claim of the government that power generation had increased due to their policy because the difference was not due to the efforts of the government but due to the increase in hydel power generation which was normal during the rainy season. It can be verified from the record of power generation during this time of the year, he projected.
He was strongly critical of the government that had made payments to the power companies to the extent of more than 300 billion of rupees and yet the intensity of load shedding had not been reduced. The government could not meet its commitment of no load shedding during Iftar, Sehr and Taraveeh despite running campaign in the media to the contrary.
He observed that the recent raise in tariff of petroleum products was pushed with connivance of the bureaucracy and cartel of oil companies to earn profit of Rs 360 billion for the crony capitalists. The day light robbery to fill the deep pockets of the owners of oil companies by making a hole in the pockets of poor people was height of bad governance, he commented. He said that the PPP would not let the government to squeeze the last blood of the people and would therefore mobilise public opinion against the tyrannical tariff both inside the Parliament and outside.