DESPITE admitted gradual downward trend in prices of petroleum products in the world market during the last two months, the benefit has not been passed on to the consumers who continue to pay higher prices announced few months earlier. The acting Parliamentary Leader in the National Assembly of PML (Nawaz Group), Ch. Nisar Ali, who has been twice Federal Minister for Petroleum, has told newsmen that according to his calculations consumers are paying additional Rs. 8 to 12 per litre of high speed diesel and gasoline. He claims that the Federal Government is reluctant to reduce prices because higher prices of petroleum products mean higher revenue for the Government on account of excise duty, sales tax and petroleum surcharge.
It had been earlier agreed to allocate two hours for a full length debate on the issue in the National Assembly concerning the prices of petroleum products which impact the national economy. The debate could not take place c as the session has been adjourned sine die. Ch. Nisar maintains that this is a vital economic issue and notwithstanding at least 20 per cent reduction of petroleum products’ prices in world market Government’s failure to cut prices has forced opposition to launch a nation-wide agitation. He also referred to PML (N)’s petition in the apex court and hoped that the highest court will intervene. He alleged that Rs. 60 billions on account of petroleum surcharge had been collected by the Government but not a penny out of this huge amount has been spent on development of the petroleum sector. If allegations made by Ch. Nisar are correct, then we fail to understand why the Government should continue to cause incalculable harm to national economy. Higher petroleum prices mean higher transportation cost which ultimately impacts the consumer items’ prices.
It appears there is a strong lobby within the Government which is promoting the interests of the multinationals and oil marketing companies. The authorities must come out clean in the matter. The full facts vis-a-vis the oil prices must be placed before the public so that the impression that consumers are being fleeced to rill the pockets of OMCs and multinationals involved in petroleum business is dispelled. The delay is creating an understandable doubt in the minds of the consumers. There appears to be something wrong somewhere. The Government must clarify the ground position. It is however an admitted fact that petroleum refineries and oil marketing companies have made very huge profits ever since the year 2000 when their cartel, the Oil Companies Advisory Committee, was given the role of a price regulator. This arrangement denied all logic and the ultimate sufferers were the consumers and the people of Pakistan.

Cloak-and-dagger games

British Prime Minister Tony Blair rarely misses an opportunity to tell the world in general and Iraqis in particular that democracy is the only way forward for a country plunged into violence and turmoil. The extraordinary revelations now coming out of Northern Ireland suggest not only that this is hypocrisy but also raise the possibility that Blair may once again have told the British Parliament a falsehood. Twenty years ago, British intelligence pulled off a stunning coup when it suborned a senior member of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional IRA terrorist’s into working for them. The man, Denis Donaldson, went on to become the party’s administrator and doubtless told his secret masters much about the Sinn Fein’s close links to terrorism.
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement which finally ended Republican terrorism violence provided for a power-sharing executive in the British province, in which Sinn Fein politicians played a leading role. In October 2002, the executive collapsed amidst allegations that Sinn Fein had been spying on other parties within the Stormont Parliament building. Three leading Sinn Fein politicians were arrested, including Donaldson. Earlier this month the trial of these individuals collapsed when the prosecution announced that it would not be in the public interest to proceed. As a result of a still puzzling series of maneuvers, Donaldson then admitted that he had been a British spy and as a result, after making a public confession, alongside Sinn Fein leader and former terrorist Gerry Adams, was expelled from the party. It now looks very much as if the whole Sinn Fein spy ring in Stormont was a fiction created by British intelligence. If this is true, then the secret arm of the British government deliberately brought about the end of the elected Northern Ireland assembly and the return of direct rule from London. That in itself is a scandal which says little about the Blair government’s respect for the democratic process on its own backdoor step.
More seriously though, when asked in Parliament why the trial of the three Sinn Fein men had collapsed, the British leader replied that he had no idea. Yet in the heightened state of security in Britain as elsewhere, Downing Street has probably never had such a close and intense relationship with its intelligence services. The only explanation if Blair really did not know what his spymasters were up to in Northern Ireland is that the British security services are out of government control. The record, however, shows that this British government seeks to be very much in control of all the levers of power. To many observers its seems inconceivable that Blair did not know that Donaldson was in fact working for London and therefore by extension, he had good reason to believe that the alleged Sinn Fein spy ring was a scam. That he therefore let the democratic power sharing assembly collapse suggests that this is what he wanted to happen. The further suspicion that Blair then misled Parliament is the stronger because he has done it before — over the business of Iraq’s WMD.

—Arab News