ISLAMABAD, Sept 19:  In a All Pakistan CNG Association (APCNGA) meeting, held here on Wednesday, members of the association lambasted the government for the newly introduced weekly based pricing mechanism on the grounds that the price of CNG has been increased by around Rs25 in the past two months.

“The government has allowed marketing companies to increase prices which has added to the misery and woes of the common man,”  Ghiyas Paracha, chairman APCNGA said addressing a press conference after the meeting, he added: “As a mater of fact the petroleum pricing has been allocated to the state run oil company, the PSO.”

The CNG dealers said that PSO was adding their own inefficiency cost into the oil prices and passing it on to the consumers: “But in the way the CNG is being hit unnecessarily due to the issue of petrol price parity.”

Responding to a question that the petrol price parity formula was agreed by the APCNGA with the government, Mr Paracha said that the petroleum ministry had also agreed to cut down CNG loadshedding from three days to two and a half days for Punjab and none for Sindh.

“But this part is not being implemented — besides the main concern now is that there is no transparency in the pricing currently being practiced, therefore the government should control the prices rather give it to any single company.

He said that there is no way that the masses or even the stake holders can have access to the input cost or even the formula being used to determine the prices.

Mr Paracha said, adding that at least the government should disclose the actual price of gas that is being set to establish the retail price of CNG.

The APCNGA members said that the government policies were flawed and causing serious inflationary pressure on the masses, besides causing damages to the CNG sector.

Besides, Mr Paracha said that when the gas prices are fluctuating on weekly basis, the Sui Northern Gas Company Limited (SNGPL) and Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL) should also bill them on weekly basis.

It was also highlighted that the CNG sector was consuming around 9.1 per cent of the total gas consumed in the country but after severe load shedding this percentage has dropped to 6.8 per cent.

The members said that CNG is the largest tax paying sector among all the gas based industries, and the CNG sector is paying Rs70 million per day under the head of Gas Infrastructure Development Cess.

Answering to a question, Chairman APCNGA said that Cess was introduced to finance the gas related mega projects like Iran-Pakistan pipeline and LNG imports but nothing has been done in these areas.

The CNG sector has also announced that it will remain close on Friday, September 21, in protest against the derogatory film produced in the US and has asked the petrol stations to join them in the country wide strike.