Carbon tax abolition sought

KARACHI - The CNG Station Owners Association of Pakistan (CSOAP) expressed their reservations on the newly introduced Carbon Tax on CNG. The association has forwarded a letter to Advisor to Prime Minister on Finance Shaukat Tarin and Advisor to the Prime Minister on Petroleum Dr Asim Hussain, to take back the decision of Carbon Tax.
We have decided to protest in a peaceful manner and had sent letters to the officials. We want to solve the issue on table and do not want to create panic. But some of our owners are demanding to move to court if government not take any action, said Chairman CSOAP, Malik Khuda Bakhsh.
Our demand is that the government should take back this new tax, as it will raise the price of CNG by Rs 6 per kg. It should also be mentioned here that, according to the policy of 1992, the CNG should be allocated in industrial tariff zone but instead of that we are paying commercial tariff. Industrial tariff is Rs 339 per mmbtu, commercial tariff of natural gas is Rs 393 per mmbtu while the CNG industry is paying Rs 427 per mmbtu. The CNG industry was paying industrial tariff from 1992 to 2006 in past. The CNG policy 1992 should be implemented, including our demand of maintaining 50 pc difference between the prices of petrol and CNG, said Malik.
He added that CNG industry has invested Rs 170b in the country while Rs 20b are in pipeline.
The government has asked the CNG industrialists to agree on the difference of prices between petrol and CNG up to 40 pc. We have shown our willingness to this recommendation as petroleum sector has asked for this favour from the government, in order to protect their business, he added.
Moreover, the CSOAP has recalled the meetings of February 15 and 16, 2009 and April 28th 2009 with Shaukat Tarin as well as Dr Asim Hussain, along with high ranking government officials in which CNG stakeholders were assured to be taken into confidence before taking any decision about CNG industry. They also assured that gas price would be calculated on the basis of international oil prices and will be reduced from July 1, 2009 and reduction in prices would be passed on to consumers through industry but instead of reducing gas tariff, government has now imposed Carbon Tax on CNG despite the fact that CNG is environment-friendly, free from carbon emissions and PDL is also not applied on CNG.