Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami has protested against the decision to raise fuel oil prices by 20 taka a litre. The party has called on the government to step back from the decision. Jamaat’s secretary general Mia Golam Parwar made the call in a statement sent to the media on Monday.
In the statement he said the government is placing a burden of expense on ordinary people by raising fuel oil prices again and again. People are already at a loss amid the unchecked rise in commodity prices. The balance of income and spending for lower and middle income people has been destroyed, and people are struggling to meet household costs. In the middle of this, the decision to raise fuel oil prices by 20 taka a litre at a stroke will create a fresh crisis in people’s lives and multiply their hardship many times over.
Mia Golam Parwar said the effect of the fuel price rise will not be confined to those who use motor vehicles. Because fuel is one of the principal elements of the transport and production system, a rise in its price will increase agricultural production costs, goods transport, factory production costs and the cost of doing business. Following on from that, the prices of essential and other goods in the market will rise. In the end it is ordinary people who will have to bear the burden.
Jamaat’s secretary general said the government should have taken the decision with people’s purchasing power, the incomes of lower and middle income classes and the overall economic situation in mind. Placing the entire burden of instability in the international market directly on the public can in no way be a policy for the public good.
He added that before raising fuel oil prices the government must take effective steps on alternative arrangements, cutting expenditure, ending waste and irregularity, increasing efficiency in energy management and reducing unnecessary spending in the sector concerned. At the same time there must be strict monitoring to control prices in the market and an end to irregularities by middlemen. If the financial pressure on state bodies is met simply by raising prices, the long-term effect will fall on ordinary people’s lives.
Golam Parwar said it is the government’s responsibility to relieve the public’s hardship.