Vice President Syed Rashid Hussain Bukhari calls an 8.2% inflation outlook alarming. Official data suggest he understates the problem: prices are already rising about 10% a year, and cheaper petrol has not reached the kitchen
MULTAN: Cheaper petrol has not made food any cheaper, Syed Rashid Hussain Bukhari, vice president of the Mustaqbil Pakistan party, said on Friday. He called the prospect of inflation reaching 8.2% “deeply concerning” and accused the government of hiding public hardship behind growth statistics.
“Despite a decrease in the prices of petroleum products, essential commodities are becoming more expensive by the day instead of becoming more affordable,” Bukhari said in a statement issued by the party’s media cell in Multan.
Official price data released the same week largely support his complaint about food. They also show that his headline figure understates the problem.
The 8.2% that is already behind us
The 8.2% figure Bukhari cited is the World Bank’s latest inflation forecast for Pakistan’s 2026-27 fiscal year. It is also the government’s own target, set in the June budget. Prices are already rising faster than that.
Consumer price inflation was 11.1% in August and 10.3% in September, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, and averaged 10.2% in the first quarter of the fiscal year, more than double the 4.3% recorded a year earlier. The International Monetary Fund forecast this month that inflation would average 9.9% for the year and said Pakistan’s inflation had risen more sharply than that of almost any other oil-importing economy in the region. At least one brokerage expects October’s reading, due in early November, to come in near 10%.
The weekly Sensitive Price Indicator, which tracks 51 essential items in 17 cities including Multan and Lahore, shows annual inflation climbing to 11.85% in the week to October 22, from 11.38% a week earlier.
Petrol down, kitchen up
The gap Bukhari describes is clearly visible. Petrol prices are now revised daily under a system introduced in July. After nearing Rs400 a litre in early October, peaking at Rs398.96, petrol has been cut repeatedly and stood at Rs377.71 on Friday, about Rs21, or 5%, lower.
In the same week that the SPI recorded petrol falling 3.6%, the price of a domestic LPG cylinder jumped 22% to an average of Rs6,311, live chicken rose 12% to Rs444 a kilogram, and the 20kg flour bag edged up to Rs2,976. Nineteen of the 51 items rose, 12 fell and 20 were unchanged.
Compared with a year ago, LPG is up 107%, onions 73%, electricity for the lowest-consumption households 59%, petrol 44%, diesel 42%, chicken 39% and wheat flour 36%. Some items have become cheaper, which the government points to: tomatoes are down 72%, potatoes 41%, sugar 25% and eggs 22%.
Why the savings stall
One reason the petrol cut has not reached the dinner table is that goods do not travel on petrol. Trucks, tractors and the vehicles that move wheat, vegetables and livestock to market run on diesel, and diesel has barely moved. It was Rs395.72 a litre in early October and Rs391.75 on Friday, a fall of about 1%, and the price rose again on the day petrol was cut. In September diesel crossed Rs403, pushing up freight and transport fares that rarely come back down.
Other costs are rising independently of fuel. Wheat and flour have their own supply crisis: Punjab this week banned the sale of 20kg flour bags and the federal government proposed a Rs4,500 per maund wheat price for next year’s crop. LPG is selling at nearly double the official rate amid gas shortages, and electricity tariffs have been raised again, a move one opposition party called an attack on the poor.
Who feels it most
Bukhari said households were being squeezed from every side: “limited income, unemployment, exorbitant electricity and gas bills, and the soaring costs of essential goods”.
The data add a nuance. The SPI breaks inflation down by monthly spending, and in the latest week the poorest group, spending up to Rs17,732 a month, faced annual inflation of 8.45%, compared with 12.69% for the highest-spending group. The difference reflects falling prices of staples such as sugar, potatoes and tomatoes that take a larger share of poor households’ budgets. But the poorest families have little cushion, and the items rising fastest, flour, cooking gas and power, are ones they cannot cut back on. Studies of Pakistan’s food insecurity and the cost of the daily roti point the same way.
Statistics versus the street
Bukhari’s central charge is political: that the government is “merely presenting statistics on economic growth” rather than solving problems. “The true measure of a nation’s progress lies in the standard of living of its people, an increase in their purchasing power, the availability of employment opportunities, and easy access to basic necessities,” he said. If economic policies do not benefit ordinary people, he added, claims of prosperity remain meaningless.
The government’s case is that it is managing an external shock. The finance ministry says global oil prices, driven by the Middle East war, are “the principal risk” to the inflation outlook. Officials point to remittances up nearly 15% in the first two months of the fiscal year, record foreign-exchange reserves and a narrower current account deficit. Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has said growth will clock “north of 4%”, above the IMF’s 3.5% forecast.
Room for relief is limited. Pakistan’s $7 billion IMF programme rules out broad subsidies. The Fund has pressed the government to end the Rs100-a-litre petrol relief for motorcycles, rickshaws and small cars, and the ministry says relief must stay “temporary and targeted”. The IMF’s regional report, which warns of risks to Gulf remittances, advises cash transfers aimed at the most affected households rather than across-the-board price cuts.
Same message, different voice
The statement follows a similar warning the same day from the party’s chairman, Engineer Nadeem Mumtaz Qureshi, who called for pro-people reforms to protect purchasing power. Bukhari said that under Qureshi’s leadership the party was raising public grievances “at every relevant forum” to secure economic justice. Mustaqbil Pakistan is a small party founded in 2010; it won no seats in the 2018 general election.
The State Bank of Pakistan’s monetary policy committee meets on Monday, October 26. Analysts are split between holding the policy rate at 11.5% and raising it by up to 100 basis points if fuel prices stay high. The October inflation figure, due in early November, will show whether falling petrol prices begin to ease the pressure on food, or whether diesel, gas and electricity keep prices rising.
For households in Multan, Lahore and elsewhere who already feel the squeeze, Bukhari’s demand is straightforward: lower fuel prices must show up in lower prices at the shop.
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