Federal Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said on Saturday while giving more information about the Sasta Petrol-Diesel Scheme started by the prime minister, that the rising prices of petroleum products have helped the rupee and given the stock market a boost.
At a news conference in Islamabad, Miftah Ismael and Ayesha Ghous Pasha, Minister of State for Finance, said that anyone making less than Rs40,000 can use this scheme. “On June 1, anyone can get the Rs2,000 by sending their national identity card number to 786,” he said.
When asked, the minister said he didn’t know if the price of gasoline would go up again at the end of the month. “Petroleum prices just went up, and on June 1, I hope there won’t be any more increases,” he said.
He also said that no plan was being considered to raise the price of electricity.
The government says that it is still subsidising HSD at Rs56.71 per litre, LDO at Rs37.84 per litre, petrol at Rs21.83 per litre, and kerosene at Rs17.02 per litre.
The talks with the IMF to get the $6 billion loan programme back on track and the $1 billion tranches released right away are still in limbo because the Fund wants the government of Pakistan to get rid of all the subsidies on POL products and energy that the previous PTI government said it would give.
Miftah told the press that if the government hadn’t raised the prices of POL, the economy would have been hurt and inflation would have gone back up.
He praised the work of PM Shehbaz, who started a programme to make gasoline and diesel cheaper.
Finance Minister Miftah said that the Rs28 billion in aid that the prime minister said would be given out through the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) would be given out after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Board gave its final approval. He said that the fund, which was supposed to give $3 billion, has been asked to extend the programme by one year and give an extra $2 billion. He also said that the country expects the fund to give around $5 billion.
He also said that the agreement with the IMF’s staff would be signed next month (June).
Miftah said that the programme with the Fund is important not just because the country gets money from the Fund, but also because it makes it easier for the country to get money from other multilateral organisations like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
He said that once the IMF unlocked the money, Pakistan would get money from multilateral organisations. He also said that the World Bank had already agreed to give Pakistan $8.9 billion.
The minister also praised the government’s decision to raise the prices of POL because it helped the rupee and made its value go up on the market. He also said that the stock market had shown signs of strength.
The minister explained the PM relief package by saying that the “Sasta Petrol and Sasta Diesel” scheme would help about a third of the country’s people by giving cash to 14 million households (84,000,000 people).
From June on, each household would get Rs2,000. This would bring the total amount of relief to Rs28 billion in June.
He said that about 7.3 million people had already signed up for the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), and if these people are taken out of the picture, there are still 6.7 poor households with a poverty score below 37.
He said that BISP participants would get immediate help or Rs2,000, and that the heads of households whose women have not signed up for the programme should send their CNICs to the phone number 786.
He said that the plan to help people would be put into the federal budget for the fiscal year 2022–2023.
He criticised the previous PTI government, saying that the country’s inflation was due to their “incompetence.” He said that the former prime minister, Imran Khan, had agreed with the IMF that the government would not subsidise gasoline and that the government would also raise the tax on gasoline by 30%.
“If we had stuck to the terms that former finance minister Shaukat Tarin had agreed to with the IMF, diesel would have cost Rs300/L and gasoline would have cost Rs270/L,” Miftah said.
He said that Tarin said he had put money in the national exchequer for subsidised gasoline, but that was a lie because there was no money there.
When asked about privatisation, the minister said that there had been no talk about it with the IMF. He did say, though, that the country needed to privatise some things, like discos and power companies, in order to help the national exchequer.
He said that Saudi Arabia had already said it would keep giving Pakistan $3 billion, and he hinted that more help was likely to come from that country, but that the details would be shared in July.
In response to a question about the import ban, the minister said that bulk imports of chocolates and drugs were banned, but that anyone could get them for their own use.
