The PTI government is increasingly looking vulnerable. The last few weeks have savaged its perception in terms of governance. Spiralling inflation has been weakening the government on a daily basis and denting its popularity. The steep hikes in the price of petrol, electricity and food items have severely affected the lives of the majority.
The people of Pakistan are very patient and thankful. They know how to face all kinds of difficulties. When an attempt is made to suppress them by lying, torturing and harassing, they usually lighten their burden by screaming or crying, but their condition does not change.
Similarly, the sighs and groans of the Pakistani people could not reach Prime Minister Imran Khan. Federal ministers, special assistants and advisors are just busy pleasing the premier instead of focusing on the citizens’ plight.
Here the question arises whether Prime Minister Imran Khan does not know that the wages of private companies’ employees, which are 80% in this country, have not increased in last three years. Because the owners are compelled and their business expenses have increased 70 times in the last 3 years.
Imran Khan and his cabinet are providing many justifications for the soaring price inflation: spike in global commodity markets, flawed policies of earlier governments and their corruption etc. But none is convincing enough for the public that has been struggling to cope with a sustained onslaught of elevated food and energy inflation for more than three years.
Meanwhile, food products such as flour, edible oil and ghee, sugar, vegetables and pulses as well as other daily essentials are becoming increasingly more expensive for low-middle-income households. Despite all these problems, at the end of the month, the electricity bill carries 30% of the salary and you have to buy expensive tankers of water.
Those of us who have recently been grocery shopping or filled their car or motorcycle tanks or paid their electricity bills know how steeply prices have jumped from a month ago. So when officials tell the ordinary citizen that Pakistan is still cheaper than many other countries they are only betraying their total disconnect with those reeling under the unbearable mass of inflation tax.
Imran Khan says that we have done and will do what we can, but we cannot do anything about the storm of inflation in the world. Imran Khan Sahib! If your government had bought commodities at the right time and at the right price, then you could easily control inflation in the country.
But in our country, like the royal people, things are bought through a royal proclamation or tender when the markets are at their peak. Imran Khan Sahib! Planning needs to be done to reduce inflation, so perhaps economists in this world make economic plans for at least 5 to 10 years. Didn’t your government take into account the coming inflation?
If the government had a plan for the next three years in which inflation would have been taken into account, prices would not be so high today. Food items would also be available at reasonable prices. But in those 3 years, you just kept telling the stories of your political enemies and did not make any plans about the national economy.
Today, when people are paying their electricity bills on time, the power generating companies increase the prices day by day and the government seems helpless to control them. The more institutions the government would privatize, they will continue to increase their arbitrary prices which will make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
