ISLAMABAD, Sept 29: The government’s unwillingness to pass the benefit of recent decrease in international oil prices on to domestic consumers on the premise that it had sustained losses in the past in the form of subsidy carries no weight since it was not subsidy but the government had slightly lowered its share of earning, said TheNetwork for Consumer Protection in a statement on Friday.

Terming the statement of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz ruling out immediate relief to the consumers unfair, TheNetwork asked the government to pass the benefit of decrease in international oil prices onto the consumers.

The organization questioned the government’s intention to analyse the international oil prices for 20 days and demanded that the relief must be passed onto the consumers without any further delay.

“The dual standards of the price fixing authority simply suggest that the price fixing formula claimed to be based on fluctuations in international oil prices is seriously flawed and designed only to safeguard the interests of those who make money out of it, completely ignoring the consumers and the overall inflation it causes,” it stated.

In all other countries, the organization said, decrease in international oil prices was immediately passed onto the consumers without pondering for 20 days. If consumers pay high prices immediately without waiting for finishing the stocks bought at lower rates earlier, the principle of fairness and justice demands that prices must be lowered in the same cycle without considering the purchase prices, it added.

“The petrol prices in US were lowered from $2.80 per gallon last month to $2.34 per gallon now, which was a decrease of 16 per cent. The POL product prices in US continue to fluctuate in accordance with the happenings in international price market, while in Pakistan the increase is immediately passed onto the consumers, while the decrease trend in international prices was answered with no change in the prices,” it added.

While 43 per cent of petrol prices (24.62 per cent petrol development charges, 13 per cent sales tax, 1.56 per cent excise duty and 4.8 per cent inland freight equaliser margin) directly goes to the government, 6 per cent to oil marketing companies and dealers and rest of 51 per cent is paid as ex-factory price of the product, the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) takes care of the stakes of all the parties and consumers are left to suffer, the organization deplored.

“In case of sudden decrease in prices, all the three parties (government, oil companies an dealers) would have to face some loss over the prevailing stocks purchased when the prices were relatively high.

It seems that for the government conceding some loss in taxes is subsidy and is compensated when the prices are decreased, ”the organization observed.