KARACHI: Former President of Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) Dr. Shahid Rasheed Butt on Saturday rejected massive increase in the price of petroleum products terming it a move against the interest of masses which will hit the popularity of the government.

Hike in the price of petroleum products, increased price of ghee and cooking oil and power tariff increase will result in a new wave of inflation making life very difficult for majority of the people, he said in a statement.

Butt said that government is testing patience of masses but their actions have become intolerable and amounts to robbing people through mini-budgets. This incapable government will squander billions of rupees collected from the increase in prices of petroleum products, he said, adding that forth hike in petroleum products in two months is insupportable.

Butt said unfair distribution of wealth is causing serious economic and social problems. Poverty, hunger, illiteracy, preventable disease, polluted air and water, and most of the other ills that beset humanity have the same root cause — the inequitable distribution of wealth and resources, he said.

Butt said that most human misery and injustice is a fair allocation of the world’s wealth but the current economic system promotes unequal distribution of wealth and promotion of the interests of the wealthy. He said that the influence of the wealthy and the inequalities are increasing side-by-side, which proves that something is wrong in the heart of the system which is failing it.

He said that social development and economic revival could only become a reality if serious steps are taken to ensure just distribution of resources and protection of the rights of the masses. He said that redistribution of wealth through state intervention can minimize impoverishment but it has never been a priority of those who matter, he observed.

The state should use all resources to fulfil the economic, social and cultural rights of the masses as all the strategies that ignore just distribution of wealth waste our time and resources and undermine our efforts to create a better society.

Just distribution of wealth cannot be achieved unless the indirect taxation is reduced and direct taxation is increased in Pakistan which is being demanded for decades as indirect taxes hurt the poor, he said. He said that concrete actions based on recommendations of a national debate have become imperative as current difficulties are pointing towards alternative approaches and solutions that need to be explored.