This is the second month of the year 2022, but the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) often takes power consumers back to 2021 in terms of fuel adjustment. In the power bills of February 2022, electricity bills will carry inflated rates as NEPRA has further increased the price of electricity by Rs 3.9 per unit in the context of the December monthly fuel adjustment. According to the ‘power shocking’ announcement, the recent increase would impose an additional burden of Rs26.40 billion on consumers. Other than the inflated power bills, people may suffer yet another increase in the prices of petroleum products, which are a matter of time, primarily in the wake of increasing prices of POL products in the international markets. The rise in prices of electricity and petroleum products means that it will have an impact on the overall rate of inflation. In developing countries like Pakistan, the answer to this question can solve many complex problems that the root cause of corruption is inflation. Or is corruption a major cause of inflation? In fact, the two of them are linked together.
Prime Minister Imran’s core political ideology revolves around controlling corruption. Most of the time, the evil of corruption stems from a lack of powerful watchdog institutions. Similarly, inflation stems from corrupt policies. The issue, however, is that Prime Minister Imran Khan has admitted that he could not eradicate corruption; now is the time to admit his failure to control inflation, which has definitely increased the problems of the common man. Corruption is bound to increase when the purchasing power of the people is low. Apart from corruption, the reason for inflation in Pakistan is also a lack of good governance and external debt. After the mini-budget, fears of rising inflation are already being expressed, the effects of which are beginning to be felt. Although the government is taking steps on its own to control inflation, the government’s economic strategists must review its strategy once and for all so that the Djinn of inflation can be bottled up.
