Government benefiting common man?
By Arman Sabir
The people of Pakistan, already faced with
intermittent power and gas load shedding, drone attacks, bomb explosions,
firing, looting, deteriorating law and order, have to be squeezed further as
the government is again ready to raise petrol and gas prices.
The increase in the prices of petroleum will
lead another Tsunami of inflation which apparently and as seen in the past will
affect immensely a common man.
On the other hand, the government claimed
that the international oil price had soared to 124 US dollar per barrel and
there was no other option but to pass the inflationary effect on to the people
of the country.
According to a newspaper report, the CNG
price is likely to be increased on April 1, 2012, by Rs11.58 that will mean a
110 per cent rise since the year 2008 in the CNG prices. From the first of
April, the petrol price is also likely to go up to Rs103.68 per litre and high
speed diesel price is expected to be increased up to Rs108.16 per litre.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari while delivering
his fifth annual presidential address to a joint session of Parliament on
March 17, 2012, claimed that Pakistan’s economy had begun to improve under the
PPP’s rule and that the government had successfully implemented policies to
address mass poverty and unemployment.
He told the parliamentarians, “We have tried
to manage the economy with one primary focus; to ensure that the benefits reach
the common man.”
Last year in June, it was for the third year
in a row, the Pakistan government refused to state how many people in the
country live below the poverty line, although estimates based on data provided
by the finance ministry in its economic survey suggest that the poverty rate
may have increased to an astonishing 43%.
According to new ADB report, a ten per cent
increase in food prices pushes 3.5 million more Pakistanis into extreme poverty
(earning below $1.25 a day).
The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the
week ended on March 29, for the lowest income group up to Rs8,000/- has
registered increase of 0.22 per cent over the previous week. These figures have
been compiled by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.
“The food basket has shown a consistent
increase since 2007 from Rs1000 to Rs1790 (79 per cent) based on retail prices
of December 2011,” according to a biannual report on Change in Cost of Food
Basket (July-December 2011).
According to the data prepared by the
Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the country’s textile exports had shown a
downward trend of 7.5 per cent during first eight months (July-February) of
ongoing fiscal year 2011-12 against the corresponding period of the previous
year owing to present power crisis and reduced textile prices in international
market.
The State Bank in its concluding remarks of
the Monetary Policy Statement February 2012 stated, “Faced with a constraining
domestic and global economic environment, SBP’s monetary policy is trying to
strike an appropriate balance among multiple and often competing
considerations. These include: bringing inflation further down, ensuring
financial stability, preserving foreign exchange reserves, and supporting
private investment in the economy.”
The international monitoring organization Economy Watch said that the Pakistan
However, the year 2007 witnessed a lot of
political and economic instability leading to depreciation of Pakistani rupee.
The growth of the economy was affected once again during the 2008 global
economic recession.
The Economy
Watch doesn’t see any significant economic growth in Pakistan
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