Petrol price could have surged to Rs1,200 per litre without IMF deal: Rana Mashhood

KARACHI: Rana Mashhood, Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme, has labelled the recent increases in electricity and petrol prices as distressing.

However, he also stated that without the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, petrol price could have soared to Rs1,200 per litre, and electricity tariffs might have reached Rs400 per unit.

During his visit to Karachi, Mashhood addressed the media at NED University and the University of Karachi. He remarked that former Prime Minister Imran Khan had warned of Pakistan’s potential insolvency without IMF support.

Yet, after Khan’s administration ended, Shoaib Tareen, then Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s finance ministers, was found undermining the IMF deal.

Mashhood also advocated for a ban on military wings of political parties and urged the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to apologise for the events of May 9.

According to Express News, he condemned Pakistan’s adversaries, affirming that while everyone has the right to engage in politics, terrorism will not be tolerated. He expressed optimism for Pakistan’s future.

Reflecting on the past, Mashhood pointed out that despite increasing the higher education budget annually until 2018, the political instability triggered by the disqualification of Nawaz Sharif through what he described as a false case went unchallenged.

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