Finance Minister Miftah Ismail went on the defensive on Tuesday, a day after the government raised the price of petrol for the next fortnight, saying that while he was an \u201ceasy target\u201d the revision does not include any new taxes.<\/p>\n
In response to a tweet by journalist Hamid Mir, he argued that the government had not imposed new taxes on petroleum products.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe increase or decrease in prices is according to the purchasing by Pakistan State Oil (PSO),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ismail\u2019s remarks also come after PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz took to Twitter to say that party supremo Nawaz Sharif had strongly opposed the decision to raise the price of petrol.<\/p>\n
He even said that he couldn\u2019t burden the people further and that he was not in favour of the decision, she said, adding that Nawaz also left the meeting.<\/p>\n
When Mir asked the minister why local prices were increasing when global prices had fallen, Ismail provided an explanation for how petrol and diesel prices are decided.<\/p>\n
The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) takes the average Platt prices, adds freight and the premium paid by PSO on top of these prices, and multiplies that by the exchange rate, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition, it also \u2018trues up\u2019 the previous fortnight\u2019s cost by taking into account the rupees paid by PSO at the actual exchange rate, as opposed to the average used to estimate the previous fortnight\u2019s cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have not added any new tax or levy to the price. The price of petrol has gone up (and diesel has gone down) because the cost paid by PSO in the previous fortnight was more than the cost estimated by Ogra and also because the premium paid by PSO on petrol increased and [the] premium paid on diesel remained unchanged,\u201d Ismail said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgain, not one paisa of new taxes or levies was added,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
However, the journalist continued to grill the minister, to which Ismail replied that the fuel price summary was moved by Ogra and sent to the Finance Division through the Petroleum Division.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe get it only a few hours before prices are set.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am an easy target. Which is fine. But this price change only reflects the change in PSO costs and doesn\u2019t have any new taxes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The finance minister said that people were welcome to \u201ccritique or criticise\u201d him, saying: \u201cI know I am sincere to my country and have saved it from default and [am] working to the best of my ability.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Finance Minister Miftah Ismail went on the defensive on Tuesday, a day after the government raised the price of petrol for the next fortnight, saying that while he was an \u201ceasy target\u201d the revision does not include any new taxes. In response to a tweet by journalist Hamid Mir, he argued that the government had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273880,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[2416,876,362],"class_list":{"0":"post-277546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-national","8":"tag-miftah-ismail","9":"tag-petrol","10":"tag-pmln"},"yoast_head":"\n