GUJRAT: Senior PPP leader Qamar Zaman Kaira says the federal cabinet will discuss the proposal to get shops and markets closed by the evening across the country besides some other measures relating to energy conservation in the next meeting of cabinet scheduled to be held on June 7.

He said the use of electricity and fuel by the government functionaries and officers might also face a cut by 30 to 40 per cent as the country was in dire need of reducing import-related expenditure since country’s trade deficit had already widened in the 11 months of the current fiscal year.

The only way to stop the depreciation in the value of rupee against the USA dollar was to bring balance between the import and export, he told Dawn at his Lalamusa office on Saturday.

He said the business community should understand the situation and play it’s due role to steer the country out of crisis as the nation had witnessed the closure of markets and shopping plazas by the evening during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Says work on raft of measures being done

Mr Kaira, who is adviser to prime minister on Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan affairs, said though increase in the fuel prices had been a bad decision, reduction in subsidy on fuel was inevitable. The reports regarding further increase in fuel prices in the current month were baseless and every effort was being made to improve the value of rupee to reduce the pressure on economy, he said.

He said the government had constituted a committee to talk to the power companies to use local coal for energy production instead of imported coal to reduce the imports.

Asked what strategy the coalition partners have chalked out to avoid possible backlash by the masses in the coming elections due to the price hike, he said the political parties believed that they would come out of the situation by bringing stability in the economy and on political front.

He suggested that the six National Assembly seats that had been finished from Fata could be allocated for the expatriate Pakistanis for which constitutional amendment was required. The coalition government, he said, was ready to hold dialogue with the PTI on the matter of electoral reforms as well as ensuring a free and fair election in 2023.

Responding to another question, he said the PPP might extend its support to those former lawmakers in the by-elections of 20 Punjab Assembly seats who had been de-seated for supporting the coalition partners in the Punjab chief minister election.

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2022