The government’s latest fuel price hike—for the third consecutive week—serves as yet another reminder that the state has chosen the easiest, laziest and most punishing route to revenue generation: squeezing those already struggling to survive.
Instead of tackling rising inflation, which is continuing to erode incomes and household purchasing power, the government has opted to pile on additional burdens through the extractive Petroleum Development Levy (PDL). In doing so, it has once again proven that it prefers to punish the public en masse rather than take any meaningful steps to broaden the tax net or enact structural reforms.
In the coming days, ministers will undoubtedly attempt to blame the price hikes on international oil prices or the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This is a half-truth, at best. The overwhelming share of the hike comes from taxation, with citizens forced to bankroll the state’s fiscal failures every time they fill their tanks or pay transport fares. Fuel costs are not limited to transport alone, rippling through every sector of the economy, pushing up food prices and utility costs. The end result is inflation that disproportionately punishes the salaried class, laborers and the poor while insulating the wealth and privileged.
It would be disingenuous to ignore the successive failures of the Federal Board of Revenue in bringing us to this point. For years, we have been sold a canard of tax reform, digitization and expansion of the tax base. Yet the same cycle persists, with authorities ignoring untaxed sectors or tax evaders while repeatedly resorting to indirect taxation. There is no doubt the FBR has failed in its central mandate. There is also little incentive for it to improve, as its inefficiencies are rewarded with hefty bonuses, salary increases and a fleet of new vehicles rather than any meaningful accountability.
What makes the entire situation so galling is the government’s inability to offer even token acknowledgment of the misery it is inflicting on the public. Instead, it celebrates diplomatic successes, seeming to substitute them for governance. Undoubtedly, diplomatic engagement holds value. International mediation efforts, regional outreach and strategic partnerships matter. But diplomacy does not pay electricity bills, it does not lower food prices, and it certainly doesn’t make fuel affordable. Nor has it materially improved the lives of ordinary Pakistanis who still face humiliating visa restrictions, shrinking economic opportunities, and relentless inflation that leaves little space for savings.
This disconnect between official triumphalism and public suffering is now impossible to ignore. The government demands “austerity” to cut the fuel bill even as the rulers themselves refuse to cut their gas-guzzling protocols or various entitlements. Instead, the entire burden falls on ordinary households to ration electricity usage and cut back on essentials. Such disparity breeds resentment, not patriotism.
There is only so long that nationalism and rhetoric can mask economic misery. People do not judge governments solely by speeches delivered abroad or headlines celebrating diplomatic breakthroughs; they judge them by whether they can afford groceries, fuel and utility bills. They judge them by whether there is dignity in daily life.
If the government wants public support for its diplomatic agenda, those achievements must translate into tangible economic relief—and quickly. The public does not care how many diplomatic “wins” Islamabad secures if it cannot afford to keep the lights on.