January 06, 2007	Saturday	Zilhaj 15, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 5: The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) on Friday gave a call for protest demonstrations against an ‘ever-increasing’ inflation in the country. Talking to Dawn, PML-N information secretary Ahsan Iqbal criticised the recent increase in the prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and the government’s refusal of not reducing oil prices despite the slump in the international market.

Mr Iqbal said that PML-N chairman Raja Zafarul Haq had issued the directives to party office-bearers for holding protest demonstrations outside press clubs in big cities on January 10.

Criticising the government for showing insensitivity to people’s sufferings, he said that keeping the petrol and diesel prices at $80 per barrel level when the prices in the international market had fallen below $59 per barrel was a “criminal act.”

“It shows that the government is extorting money from the poor to finance its extravagant expenditures. No democratic government could be so insensitive to people,” he said.

He said the government’s decision of linking the price of domestically produced LPG to the international price would have disastrous impact on people.

He said the decision would push the price of a cylinder from Rs550 to over Rs650 and take LPG beyond the reach of a common man. The LPG producers will make windfall profits, but the people will pay a heavy price.

He said that the government had decided to increase the electricity tariff, whose impact would be disastrous on consumers and the industry as Pakistan had the highest power rates in South Asia, making the country’s products less competitive.

Mr Iqbal said that big businesses had been given a free ride at the cost of poor consumers.

“It is an elite economy model in which the poor have no place. For seven years Pakistan has seen maximum growth in social and economic inequality. During the 60s similar policies were followed which resulted in the break up of Pakistan and gave rise to socialist platform which led to nationalisation of the industry,” he said.