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Thursday, March 14, 2024

Imran Khan betrayed the public by keeping petrol prices low: Ahsan Iqbal

PML-N used PTI's "economic incompetence" as one of the reasons for bringing in the vote of no-confidence against Imran Khan. However, now the PML-N government finds itself in a similar situation.

Federal Minister Ahsan Iqbal has accused former Prime Minister Imran Khan of betraying the Pakistani public by keeping petrol prices low during his term. He made the accusations during an interview with a private news channel.

Currently, the PML-N government faces a daunting task i.e. deciding on the petrol prices. Interestingly, it heavily criticized the previous government for any decision it took regarding petrol prices, either increasing them or keeping them unchanged despite international market prices.

In fact, PML-N used PTI’s “economic incompetence” as one of the reasons for bringing in the vote of no-confidence against Imran Khan. However, now the PML-N government finds itself in a similar situation. It also seems to be taking the same decisions that PTI took.

Read more: PM Sharif rejects OGRA’s summary to increase price of petroleum products

To clarify, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif refused to increase fuel prices. Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said the government was not increasing the prices of petroleum products “for the time being”. This decision is against one of the key pre-conditions set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the revival of the country’s loan program.

Similarly, the previous PTI-led government had also refused to raise petrol prices. Former PM Imran Khan had rejected the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) summary for fuel price hikes on several occasions.

Ahsan Iqbal defends govt decision

Meanwhile, the PML-N government is ferociously defending its actions, the same for which it criticized the previous government. During the interview, Ahsan Iqbal again blamed the previous government for the current economic turmoil.

“There are trade-offs. We have a limited time frame. We cannot take the full brunt of the previous government’s four years of incompetence,” Ahsan Iqbal said.

Moreover, he said Imran Khan betrayed the public by keeping petrol prices low by claiming the government wanted to pass on the benefits of “additional resources” to the government. He said there are no additional resources and his claim was just a gimmick.

Read more: Petrol import bill increased by 96% to $14.8b in 9 months