Dealers await answers as fuel subsidy rollout begins

• Petroleum dealers lament lack of clarity on payment mechanism, timeline • PM wants facilitation desks to help people trying to buy subsidised fuel • Ogra attributes hike to elevated crude prices despite decline in int’l rates ISLAMABAD: Even as members of the public who have signed up for the PM’s Fuel Relief Scheme queued up at fuel pumps late on Wednesday night, petroleum dealers were still not clear about the mechanism whereby they would be compensated. The concern was voiced by the Pakistan Petroleum Dealers Association (PPDA) during a presser in Karachi, where its chairman Malik Khuda Bakhsh said that no fuel pump could afford to bear a loss of Rs100 per litre without clarity on how they will be compensated. He claimed that between the petroleum ministry, Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) and even the finance ministry, no one had been able to answer their questions. “Officials from Ogra and oil marketing companies say that the petroleum ministry will possibly pay the subsidy amount, whereas ministry officials maintain that payments will be made by the finance ministry, while finance ministry officials assure us that the State Bank will release the funds in a day or two