The Pakistan Petroleum Dealers’ Association (PPDA) on Friday called off its plans to begin a strike on Saturday after the government approved a proposed revision in the dealers’ margins.
The nod for the revision was also confirmed by the finance ministry in a statement.
The Economic Coordination Committee had “deliberated on the matter regarding revision of dealers’ margins on motor spirit and high-speed diesel” during a meeting chaired by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on a public holiday, the statement said, adding that a revision of the margin had been approved.
The statement did not specify the increase in the margin but a senior official told Dawn that the margin had been increased by Rs1.34.
The PPDA also said the government had increased the petroleum dealers’ margin by Rs1.34 per litre, bringing the total margin to around Rs10 per litre.
Following the increase, the dealers’ margin on both petrol and diesel will rise to Rs9.98 per litre from the existing Rs8.64 per litre.
As the PPDA Chairman Bakhsh announced during a press conference in Karachi that they were postponing the strike after the approval for the increase, he also said that petroleum product prices may once again be revised every 7 or 15 days, instead of being changed daily.
Last month, the government announced that it would start revising fuel prices on a daily basis, rather than the weekly system that had been in vogue in recent months. The government on Thursday rejected the dealers’ demand for monthly price fixing, adding that it will continue the daily price-fixing mechanism for petroleum products.
In its Friday statement, the PPDA said it “had postponed Saturday’s planned strike based on the government’s assurances”.
“However, [the PPDA chairman] warned that the association would continue its protest until all of its demands were accepted,” the statement added.
The association’s vice chairman, Tariq Hassan, further said that “because dealers had not received an increase in their margin for the past three years, approximately $50 million belonging to petroleum dealers remains outstanding with the government”.
On Wednesday, the PPDA issued a 72-hour ultimatum to the government over its failure to fulfil promises made by the petroleum minister to resolve their issues, especially the increase in margin to eight per cent on the retail sale price of petrol.
The association had warned that if the government failed to meet its demands within 72 hours, petrol pumps across the country would shut down indefinitely from 6am on Saturday (August 15) and would not reopen until those demands were met.
A delegation of petroleum dealers had also held brief talks with Petroleum Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik in Islamabad on Wednesday.
In the meeting, the minister had assured the delegation that a Rs1.34 per litre increase in dealers’ margin, which had been pending for two years, had already been sent to the ECC and was awaiting approval from the Federal Cabinet.
Additional reporting by Mubarak Zeb Khan
