ISLAMABAD: The federal government is expected to gradually increase petroleum levy on petrol and other petroleum products to improve revenue collection as targeted under the 2021-22 federal budget and IMF programme.
“The International Monetary Fund [IMF] has also asked to increase the petroleum development levy [PDL] but it will depend on the global prices of petroleum products,” said Finance Adviser Shaukat Tarin while talking to Geo News.
“If the global price of oil goes down, it will be easy for the government to increase the PDL,” he said, while clarifying that the prices of petroleum products were increased because they were directly linked with the international market.
The Finance Adviser’s statement came days after the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) jacked up prices of petroleum products. The decision was announced after 1:30am [Friday] by the ministry of finance. The prime minister had early this week put on hold the increase in the wake of protest by the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan.
Speaking to Geo News, the Finance Adviser ruled out any deadlock in the talks with the IMF and said there was a single irritant regarding the autonomy of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) being currently negotiated upon which will hopefully be resolved in the coming days.
The adviser declined to comment on the issue regarding the SBP’s autonomy. However, he said the IMF officials have appreciated Pakistan’s objections to the SBP’s autonomy draft which the country sort of agreed to in March.
Commenting on the IMF’s condition regarding income tax, Tarin said Pakistan would not go for pyramiding as the country was getting good results on the revenue side.
“Pakistan went food deficient and had to import food items which led to the hike in food prices”, he said, adding that the global prices of steel, coal and palm oil have gone up and the country has to import them.
He said the situation was not the same six to seven months back when petrol, which has recently shot up to $87, was being sold at $45 to $50. “The government has announced a subsidy as part of relief to the poor”, he said, adding that the government is making efforts to enhance agricultural produce.
Replying to a question regarding the effective government control on food items, he said that after the passage of the 18th constitutional amendment it was the prerogative of the provinces to fix the prices of food items.
