ISLAMABAD: Justifying the latest petroleum price hike, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Tuesday that the government could ill-afford a Rs5 billion shortfall every month, while parties opposing the increases failed to provide an alternative.

Answering phone calls during his third live television programme, he said his government had withdrawn increases in the prices of petroleum products in December after demands by some opposition and coalition parties that had in turn “assured us they will come up with a mechanism to offset the revenue shortfall”.

But, he said, those parties failed to do so.

“We talked on the 10-point agenda,” he said about the programme given by the PML-N, “but no one provided any guidance to bring the shortfall down”.

In reply to a question about PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif’s threat to re-launch a ‘long march’ and statements of MQM chief Altaf Hussain calling for military help to bring about a common man’s revolution, the prime minister advised those seeking a change of government to take a constitutional instead of an unconstitutional path.

Asked about the arrangement under which the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was operating through contractors in the country as reported by the media about arrested American Raymond Davis, he said: “Every institution is working in its ambit and it is not possible that anyone would be working in the country without the knowledge of the government or the ISI (Inter-Service Intelligence) which is an established institution.”

He said there might be people working in the country on contract as Pakistan was being helped in various projects in the economic sector.

The prime minister, evading persistent questions on the issue, said: “It is not necessary that everything that the media is depicting is correct.”

Prime Minister Gilani denied any rift in the PPP over the recent reduction in the size of his cabinet, especially the exclusion of former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi. “The PPP is a large party which cannot be affected by such changes and so far as Mr Qureshi is concerned, he is part of the party and will remain so.”

Asked how long he would take to expand his cabinet, he said: “It is a continuous process and, by the way, I had reduced the number of ministers on the demand of opposition parties and on the desire of the people. Now leave the rest to me.”