POL price hike

However much we may dislike the recent price hike in petroleum products, the fact is that it had become inevitable. True, the government can give a subsidy, provided it can afford to do so, vis-a-vis its financial capacity to absorb this. Unfortunately the sabre-rattling by MQM or PML (Q), or ANP is just a matter of political point scoring and nothing else.
The state can only afford to give this subsidy, if it plugs the various pilferages in revenues and takes concrete measures to stop the institutionalised corruption through strict administrative measures and holding the culprits accountable. Unfortunately our political parties have failed to raise these issues with emphasis and made their support to the coalition government conditional to its fiscal discipline, which is not the case.
The massive pilferage in the KPT where thousands of containers have gone missing could not have occurred without the connivance of the KPT. Similarly the scams involving the NICL, Hajj, Power Rentals, NHA, PIA, Steel Mills etc continue to take their toll on our economy. Let these parties calling for the withdrawal of petroleum price hikes, instead focus their attention on plugging the hundreds of billions of rupees in pilferages, instead of doing popular politics, which serves only to divert the attention from the real economic issues we face and threaten our national security and state sovereignty.
States can only claim to be sovereign if they have balanced budgets and not rely solely on foreign aid, which is always with strings attached. It is time to walk their talk and ensure that peace returns to Karachi, so that the wheels of our economy start moving.
The massive flight of capital from Pakistan must cease. This country can no longer allow this drain on our forex reserves by the few who have settled abroad and want to live off the loot and plunder of its poor citizens. Remember it is the lower-middle-class segments of our expatriate citizens that repatriate over $11 billion to Pakistan, which is then siphoned off through irregular channels abroad by the few who have acquired foreign residential status and have their assets there at the expense of the sufferings of millions of Pakistanis.