Pakistan Finance Minister Miftah Ismail on Wednesday said that the prices of diesel and petrol would have been significantly higher under the agreement former prime minister Imran Khan made with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), local media reported.
"They told the IMF that they would not incur a loss (offer subsidies) on diesel -- right now you are incurring a loss of Rs70 per litre -- but they had promised the IMF that they would not incur a loss and would instead impose a Rs 30 levy and 17 per cent sales tax, which means that, according to the agreement made with the PTI, diesel should be Rs150 more expensive. What is Rs145 right now should be Rs295," Dawn newspaper quoted Ismail as saying.
According to the Pakistani newspaper, he alleged that the Imran Khan-led government did not tell the people about these agreements.
Ismail said that ever since Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had assumed office, the government was primarily focusing on reducing the prices of essential commodities.
He claimed that the Imran Khan-led government had made agreements that were difficult to fulfil, Dawn newspaper reported.
"On the one hand, Imran sahab made agreements with the IMF [...] despite this, by the grace of God, sugar is available at cheap rates for the first time since 2019," he said, adding that sugar was available for Rs70-75 even though the dollar [rate] was at Rs 180-190, the Pakistani newspaper reported.
The minister also talked about power issues and said, "Khan sahab, tell us how many power plants you set up? Is it not true that plants producing 7,500MW of electricity were closed due to lack of furnace oil or gas?"
He added that Imran had left behind load-shedding in the country.
( With inputs from ANI )
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