The federal cabinet on Tuesday gave ex-post facto approval for up to 66% increase in petroleum product prices that Prime Minister
The federal cabinet approved a summary of the Ministry of Finance to endorse the prime minister's decision to increase the petroleum prices with effective from
The cabinet also approved the appointment of Rahat Kaunain Hasan as new chairperson of the
Some cabinet ministers opposed appointment of Rahat as CCP member and chairperson due to allegations of nepotism during her last stint as chairperson, sources told
On
The finance ministry's summary noted that as per oil pricing formula, the prices of petrol, high speed diesel and light diesel oil are changed automatically but capped with
Therefore, prior to the price announcement, Ogra verifies the PSO's prices and sends ex-depot sale price summary of the petroleum products to the Petroleum Division for onward submission to the Finance Division, for final adjustment in the prices through petroleum levy. However, in this case Ogra had not moved the summary and the government increased the petrol prices by
This created a huge hue and cry among the people and the political parties but the government remained steadfast.
The Petroleum Division's working suggested that based on the last average price, the petrol price was
The working had been done without compromising the tax rates that are currently at the maximum and in case of the petroleum levy the highest ever. The ex-depot sale price of petroleum products is based on previous month import price and other components including inland freight equalisation margin, oil marketing companies and dealers' margin, customs duty, petroleum levy and 17% GST.
The Finance Division had proposed the prime minister to provide some relief in prices of petrol and high speed diesel either by reducing the petroleum levy rates and increase the prices from
The second option was that 'the increase may be spread over a large period for next 36 days (
The PM picked the option of increasing the rates from
The PM was told that in case of spreading the increase over 36 days, the OMCs/ refineries will recover less revenue in
The other benefit the government achieved by increasing prices from
The federal cabinet also approved to appoint three new members of the CCP and Rahat Kaunain Hasan has been appointed as chairperson. A ministerial committee had unanimously recommended the panel of nine persons in the order of merit for appointment against three vacant posts of the member CCP.
Rahat Kaunain Hassan, Shomaila Loan,
The federal cabinet decided to pick first two names, Rahat Kaunain and Shomaila Loan, in order of merit and ignored the third name of
© Pakistan Press International, source