We Must Cherish What PMLN has Done So Far

While the government is being grilled from all quarters on the issue of inflation, the facts are a little different from the popular mantra. It is true that the electricity prices have increased during the last few months but it is also true that so far the electricity prices have been increased only once during the current tenure of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) government. It is also true that though this rise in the price of electricity was criticized on media and the legislators alike, the price hike was carefully directed towards the privileged classes of the country and the 68% of the consumers did not get affected by this price hike. There are PMLN achievements that we must mention and cherish and we should celebrate them instead of being pessimist all the time.

At the same time, the government made sure that the problem of load shedding gets resolved. While the Prime Minister and the Water and Power Ministry have been constantly working in this regard, the line losses were also controlled. A crack down on the gas and electricity thieves was carried out by the government and there was significant success. 3933 criminal cases have been registered in the province of Punjab since June this year and out of these 3,933 cases 3,311 were against the power theft and 622 against the Gas theft, according to the report published in the Express Tribune on November 22, 2013. This had caused a loss of Rs. 5.479 billion to the national exchequer.

We also need to see that the commercial use of fuel consumption has also dropped significantly. According to the stats revealed by Hunbultex Pvt Ltd the Electricity Bill of the company for the month of November last year was Rs. 19,136 and the generator fuel had a cost of Rs. 42,000. On the other hand, this year the same company has paid Rs. 36,972 as electricity bill and nothing for the fuel as they did not require any generator this year. Apparently, it can be said that the company saved around twenty thousand rupees despite the rise in the power tariff at their office just because there was no load shedding.

The food prices have gone rampant, it is true. There is no arguing the fact that the prices rose to a level that nobody could even anticipate but that is true for the oil prices as well. While the government had estimated the cost of the oil to rise to about $ 115 per barrel in the budget for this year, the oil prices rose much higher due to the US-Syria standoff. Right now, the government is unable to control the oil prices and the dire situation of the finances of Pakistan, courtesy the previous government’s criminal negligence, it is almost impossible to give any subsidies as well. Besides, the district management simply cannot do anything about the market forces. At most they can bring the cost down from Rs. 30 to Rs. 28 for a given commodity but nothing more. It also needs to be noted that the prices have come down drastically during the last two weeks but there is no mention of this price cut anywhere in the media which is an intellectual dishonesty and even the Prime Minister mentioned this last week during the launching ceremony of the Youth Business Loans Scheme.

It is true that there are problems but talking about the problems only will never take us anywhere. We need to realize that there are positive things happening as well and unless we do not look towards the positive aspects, we are never going to get rid of the negative effects of the problems.

We can always feel pride in mentioning that our exports have increased this year comparing them to the last. We can feel pride in the fact that EU has granted us the GSP+ status that will allow us to have access to 27 countries of the European Union without paying duties. We can cherish the fact that there is no load shedding, scores of new power projects are being installed and the country is about to make it to the goal of becoming load shedding free within the next five years. And of course we can feel happy that no corruption case has surfaced during the last six months and Pakistan has improved twelve places in the corruption indices according to the Transparency International.

Things are improving and we must acknowledge the government’s resolve to take Pakistan forward and trust their efforts because it was us who voted them to power, nobody else.