According to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday, short-term inflation based on the sensitive price index (SPI) rose to an unprecedented 46.65 percent per year, which represents the group’s total income over the 22-day period ending March. However, weekly inflation increased by 1.80 percent, with food items becoming more expensive, particularly fruits, tomatoes, potatoes, and cooking oil. The SPI is expected to rise further as the worst impact of inflation from the Ramadan-related demand spiral, rupee depreciation, expensive petroleum products, general sales tax hike, and higher electricity and petrol tariffs has yet to be reflected in official data. Commodity prices are expected to rise rapidly in the coming week due to rising demand.
The experts have observed that this will be the most difficult Ramadan that most of our young citizens have ever known, with food prices skyrocketing due to increased demand, energy prices at unbearable levels, and new taxes slicing a large chunk out of household incomes. Furthermore, analysts are already predicting that inflationary pressures will worsen over the remainder of the month. Only a select few may be able to partake in the little luxuries of this month of fasts and feasts, such as elaborate iftar buffets or even breaking bread with friends and extended family. For the vast majority, it will be spent worrying about how to put two square meals on the table while dealing with the country’s worst economic crisis in recent memory.
Last week ending March 22, short-term inflation had risen to an eye-watering 46.7 percent year on year, with onion, wheat, gas, petrol, diesel, tea, rice, and egg prices nearly doubling or even more than they were the year before. Even when compared to a week ago, prices were up by 2 percent, led by a 72 percent increase in tomato prices, a 42 percent increase in wheat prices, an 11 percent increase in potato and banana prices, and a more than 7 percent increase in tea prices.
According to the data, Pakistanis are losing purchasing power almost by the day — in other words, they can afford to buy less food than they could the day before. If one wants to see how desperate our society’s most vulnerable segments have become, one only needs to look at recent reports of stampedes and general chaos at Government officials who have been distributing bags of wheat at several locations. There have been reports of people dying from exhaustion while waiting for a handout, including an elderly man in Toba Tek Singh and a woman in Muzaffargarh.
Meanwhile, retailers have continued to hoard and profit cruelly. Price gouging appears to be as much a part of Pakistan’s Ramadan traditions as sehri and iftar. Notwithstanding the administration’s publication of official price lists for various goods, shop owners still establish their own rates in accordance with their whims and preferences.
If you talk to them, they’ll tell you that the official rates are “unrealistic” and “unfair.” Sindh’s provincial administration has deployed 100 officers to combat profiteering in Karachi and has given them magisterial powers to enforce official rates. It is unclear whether the measure will improve or aggravate the situation. Such efforts typically target the end consumer rather than the actual decision-makers manipulating markets behind the scenes. Nothing will change unless the true perpetrators are brought to justice.
