LAHORE: With less than a month in power, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led federal government has been making mistakes and backtracking on its own policy decisions, showing the immaturity and lack of experience of the government in running the affairs of the country.
The government has been acting in haste ever since it assumed office, taking U-turns shortly after announcing major policy decisions. There are numerous examples of such faux pas with the recent one being deciding against a hike in gas prices.
The government had on September 5 announced a 46 per cent increase in gas prices in order to finance the deficit the department is facing. Only five days after, the government decided against it in a meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) headed by Finance Minister Asad Umar.
It seems that the government has been taking premature decisions as the government did not consult the stakeholders before authorising an increase in gas prices.
Reportedly, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah had sent a letter telling the federal government that revising gas prices does not fall in its jurisdiction. It was after this that the PTI government decided to halt the increase in gas prices for now.
On the other hand, Opposition Leader in the National Assembly and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif has claimed that he pressurised the government to review its decision of increasing gas prices.
Earlier, the PTI government attracted much negative traction after it asked Atif R Mian, an Ahmadi, to step down from the Economic Advisory Council (EAC) days after he was appointed. Moreover, the government had announced during its very initial days that it will bring Rs200 billion lying in foreign banks back to Pakistan but that is yet to be seen.
The government needs to make the decisions after thinking them through as the opposition parties are determined to see Prime Minister Imran Khan fail since they accuse him of coming to power after alleged rigging. Such mistakes will only allow them to shame the government.
