The incumbent government was not buying Russian oil because of the fear of the United States, claimed former finance minister Shaukat Tarin, as his successor announced the decision to increase petrol price by Rs30 for the second time since coming to power.

“You [government] should have visited Russia. They are panicked because they have different parties and blaming the PTI for its incompetence,” the former finance czar told Aaj News on Thursday.

Miftah Ismail in a Thursday night press conference said the price of petrol would further be increased by Rs30 because of the rising oil prices in the international market. He had also criticised his predecessor for signing “such an agreement with the IMF and violating it”.

“We gave subsidy on oil on May 28 that was around Rs20-22 per litre on petrol and Rs24 per litre on diesel and it was funded by Rs468 billion worth of funds,” Tarin said, adding that the government should have thought about giving relief to the people.

He said the “incompetent” government was accepting all IMF demands.

Elaborating on his strategy, Tarin said the PTI government had written a letter to Russia for oil import that would be available at a 30 per cent discount. “We would have been getting Rs50-55 discount on per litre of oil. We would have been using that and then could have taken this to the targeted subsidy.”

He claimed that the government was not providing any targeted subsidy and working without any “game plan”.