Government and Jamaat-e-Islami form committee to review fuel relief

ISLAMABAD: The government and Jamaat-e-Islami have agreed to form a six-member committee to prepare proposals for widening the Prime Minister's Fuel Relief Scheme and for reducing the petroleum levy in stages, after a JI delegation led by its ameer, Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman, met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad on Tuesday.

Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal, who announced the understanding at a news conference alongside the prime minister's adviser on political affairs, Rana Sanaullah Khan, said the committee would have three representatives from each side. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, Ahsan Iqbal himself and Rana Sanaullah will represent the government, he said, according to The Nation.

Ahsan Iqbal said the committee would consider expanding the scope of the petroleum relief scheme so that more deserving people could benefit, and would examine proposals to withdraw the petroleum levy gradually in the next budget, weighing the country's economic position against the burden on households.

The planning minister said the relief scheme was already benefiting more than ten million people. In the meeting itself, The Nation reported, the prime minister put the number registered under the scheme at 12.7 million.

According to The Nation, the prime minister thanked the delegation for choosing negotiations on petroleum product prices and said he fully understood the burden the increase had placed on the public. He said his government was making all-out diplomatic efforts to resolve the regional crisis so that conditions could return to normal, and that the current pressure was not the result of government policy but of the surge in global oil prices.

Ahsan Iqbal traced the energy squeeze to the conflict involving Iran, the United States and Israel, to regional tensions and to disruption around the Strait of Hormuz. The result, he said, had been higher petrol and diesel prices, rising insurance premiums and transport costs, and interrupted gas supplies. He stressed that political stability, national unity and restraint were needed to see the relief measures through.

Those at the meeting included ministers Ishaq Dar, Ahsan Iqbal, Ahad Khan Cheema, Muhammad Aurangzeb, Ali Pervaiz Malik, Rana Sanaullah and Bilal Azhar Kayani. The JI delegation included Liaquat Baloch, Syed Firasat Shah, Nasrullah Randhawa and Inayatullah.