LAHORE, Oct 16: The Consumer Rights Forum has criticised the government for protecting the rights of oil companies at the cost of people.

Accusing the government of using oil prices as an instrument of exploitation, forum chairman engineer S.T.Husain said in a statement on Monday that it was collecting around Rs250 billion per annum extra from consumers by selling petrol purchased at the rate of $60 per barrel at retail price fixed on the basis of purchase price of $78 per barrel. It had also extorted Rs1.5 trillion in the form of taxes on petrol during the past six years in addition.

He said that oil prices had been kept higher than the international market by the Oil Companies Advisory Committee. The government had not taken any action against the oil companies on being informed about the malpractice. It had, however, refused to cut the oil prices following decline in international prices on the pretext of providing subsidy to keep the prices lower.

He said that the government should submit accounts of utilisation of taxes being recovered on petrol.