Price hike: Petition calls for petroleum minister to be sacked

LAHORE:

A petition has been filed in the Lahore High Court challenging the increase in prices of petroleum products and seeking the removal of Petroleum Minister Dr Asim Hussain.

Advocate Muhammad Azhar Siddique filed the petition stating that the petroleum minister had failed to devise a strategy to control petroleum prices. He said the respondents – the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources secretary, the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority and the Federal Board of Revenue – should be directed to reveal how they determine that the price of petroleum products should be revised, and by how much.

He also asked the court to stay the most recent hike in prices. He submitted that the government had failed in its constitutional requirement to “give relief to the people”. He said the government was shifting the price burden to the common man without revealing how much petroleum it was purchasing from other countries and at what rate. He said petroleum prices were falling in the international market but rising in Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3^rd, 2012.