The federal cabinet, which met on Monday under Prime Minster Imran Khan, took some important decisions, approving an ordinance regarding formation of a regulatory authority on real estate and calling a meeting of the provinces to bring down skyrocketing prices of essential items.
The cabinet, which usually meets on Tuesdays, held its meeting a day earlier as Prime Minister Khan will be travelling to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday as part of his efforts to ease tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia. He visited Tehran on Sunday, offering the Iranian leadership to play the role of facilitator to iron out differences between the two Muslim countries.
The cabinet decided to drop its plan to form a committee on business community’s cases and threw the ball into National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) court and now it would be up to the anti-graft body as to how it would deal with such cases and negate an impression of “harassment”.
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan said at a post-cabinet meeting press conference that Prime Minister Imran Khan has ordered the authorities concerned to take steps to control the prices of basic food items. He called a high-level meeting to be attended by the four chief ministers on Friday to devise a strategy to control inflation which had increased by 11.4 per cent year-on-year in September.
“Members of the cabinet decided that the price committees of provinces will be activated and the elements responsible for fluctuation of prices and hoarding will be dealt with strictly,” Dr Awan added.
It has been observed that the prices of consumer items, vegetables and fruits have gone up unprecedentedly over the last couple of weeks adding more miseries to the people already hit by inflation.
