Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday extended the exemption for fuel adjustment charges (FAC) in August’s billing to consumers who use under 300 units of electricity.
The exemption, originally announced on Aug 23, previously applied only to consumers of 200 units of electricity or less.
“This will cover 75 per cent of the consumers across the country,” the premier said of the revised exemption as he addressed a meeting with PML-N lawmakers in Islamabad.
“In the first stage, power users consuming 200 units [or below] were given an exemption and the government was bearing a burden of Rs21 billion [for that]. But it only covered 48pc or 52pc of the users.
“I believe that this [waiver] will matter once we increase it to 300 units,” he said.
PM Shehbaz recalled that when his government came to power, it faced a myriad of problems because of the PTI government. “During Covid, gas across the world was being sold at the price of peanuts.
“But they [the PTI] did not purchase it, neither long-term nor short-term. And then the oil mafia became influential leading to expensive production of electricity in Pakistan,” he claimed.
And when the Ukraine crisis occurred, the prime minister went on, the government had to purchase “extremely expensive” oil and produce electricity from it.
“We lead a life of debt […] we add money to it […] make the electricity cheaper and provide it to the common man,” he said.
“This is the drama that was created in the country. Lies were spilt and we were brought to a never-before-seen stage, whether it was related to the livelihood of people or anything else.”
The premier continued that these were the conditions in which the incumbent government came to power. “Today, even for the FAC adjustment we had to first take permission from the IMF.
“But let me tell you, nations don’t survive this way,” he added.
