K-P residents see no end to price hikes

Pensioners, daily wagers irked by lack of price control mechanisms and traders’ subsequent gouging

PESHAWAR:

Already reeling from high commodity prices and struggling to make ends meet, the hike in fuel prices has further burdened the pockets of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s (K-P) daily wagers and pensioners.

With talk of further price hikes due to removal of subsidies doing the rounds, people in K-P like the rest of the country are not bothered about who is in charge, rather they want an end to the inflationary misery. Abdul Sabooh, a retired government school teacher who lives in the provincial capital and has only his pension to rely on to feed his children, said that every commodity had become a luxury item for them. “Every time I step out of the house, a new rate is quoted for vegetables, flour, and oil.” Sabooh was of the view that even if the government was not to blame for the inflation, their attitude towards price gougers was the problem.

“There is an army of Assistant Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners in the province, however no action is taken against shopkeepers who charge exorbitant prices,” he lamented, “this price gouging is making the lower middle class suffer even more.” Exorbitant prices were at the forefront of 8-year-old Safia’s father as well, who had to turn down her repeated pleas to buy her favourite fruits in a lock market in Peshawar.

“I am a brick kiln worker and can now barely afford anything. The hourly fluctuation in prices has rendered a monthly budget useless,” the father said. When asked about the price gouging accusations, Feroz Khan, a trader at a wholesale market in Peshawar, said that it was all just hearsay. “Prices of pulses, rice and ghee have been rising steadily for the past two months. I have no choice but to sell expensive items at higher prices.” Khan said traders were not making the common man’s life miserable on purpose as the rising prices were “beyond their control.”

President of Chamber of Commerce and Industry of K-P, Hasnain Khurshid, came bearing with more bad news for pensioners and daily wagers, stating that further inflation bombs were imminent. “Compliance with the IMF terms to get economic bailouts will only make matters worse. The other subsidies will soon disappear and the poor will get burdened further,” Khurshid predicted. Dr Bashir, an economist and former chairman of the Department of Economics at Islamia College University, concurring with Khurshid’s prediction said that governments past and present have failed to take any concrete measures to help the common man. When asked for a solution to the present economic crisis, Dr Bashir said unity was the only way forward.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 30^th, 2022.