ISLAMABAD (The Thursday Times) — The government and Jamaat-e-Islami agreed on Tuesday to set up a joint committee to work on expanding fuel relief and phasing out the petroleum levy, but JI chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman said his party’s march on Islamabad would still go ahead in mid-November.
The agreement came after Hafiz Naeem met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at the Prime Minister’s House. He said the prime minister had asked for seven to 10 days to work out proposals, and that both sides agreed more relief should be given on petroleum products, but they still differed on how.
“We say the levy should be abolished; they say relief will be provided in phases,” he told reporters. “We will continue talking to the government, but the march will take place in mid-November.” He warned that JI could take its protest to the streets if its demands were not met.
Six-member committee
Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal, speaking alongside the prime minister’s political adviser Rana Sanaullah, said the committee would have three members from each side. Iqbal, Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar and Sanaullah will represent the government. Hafiz Naeem named Liaquat Baloch, Farasat Shah, Nasrullah Randhawa and Naveed Ali Baig to JI’s negotiating team. Iqbal said the committee would look at extending the Prime Minister’s Fuel Relief Scheme to more people and at how the levy could be phased out in the next budget.
Iqbal said the rise in oil prices came from a global crisis and not from government policy, and that the government would give relief within its “fiscal limitations”. He said short-term popular decisions could hurt the economy within months.
Rs150bn a month
Sanaullah said 12.7 million people were now getting the Rs100-a-litre subsidy under the relief scheme, and that the number was expected to reach 20 million in the coming days. The levy itself stands at Rs80 a litre, he said. The government recently ordered audits of petrol pumps after thousands of eligible people missed out on the relief.
Hafiz Naeem said the government was collecting around Rs150 billion a month through the levy, far more than the relief package was worth, and that poor and middle-class households carried about 70 per cent of the burden. He said JI would not settle for a cut of Rs25 or Rs35 a litre, and also wanted customs duties and the climate support levy on fuel removed.
