This is in response to the news story titled “Fuel availability crisis: Nine OMCs found involved in hoarding, black marketing of POL products” published on June 18, 2020. So the blame has been put on OMCs but in my humble opinion, it has always been a matter of failed governance from a broader perspective. One cannot deem the private sector oil companies as culprits when in actuality, it is the misplaced command economy type regulations which are causing the country to frequently run into fuel shortages. To put it into perspective, the same counter-productive policies caused damage to our Pakistani Rupee when Ishaq Dar was blindly propping up the Rupee against the Dollar. Petroleum product pricing must be allowed to reach an equilibrium based on market forces of supply and demand. In its current state, the centre’s monthly pricing mechanism only causes OMCs to undergo losses to subsidize the citizen’s price at the pump. No business should be forced to run in a loss. The costs of Social protection must be borne by the Government and not the private entities that are geared to efficiently provide fuel to the nation’s economy on a profit motive.
Zuhair Ali Khan
Lahore
