It would have been better if all provinces had created a pool of funds for a relief package instead of a unilateral decision by Punjab as it led to speculation, former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said on Thursday.

“High electricity bills are a human rights issue that today many people have a choice to either pay the electricity bill or pay school fee of children,” he said while appearing on Rubaroo aired on Aaj News.

He was responding to a question on the Punjab government’s two-month relief in electricity bills for power consumers using up to 500 units and other provinces’ reaction to it.

People in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government criticised the relief, saying that the government was allegedly covering its fault in the IPP agreement. Adviser to the KP CM on Finance Muzammil Aslam had said that it would be tantamount to wasting public resources in the name of relief.

Abbasi, the Awaam Pakistan leader, described high electricity bills as a “serious issue”.

When asked, he said that the top two leaders of the country were meeting to settle their matters, not improving governance or resolving people’s issues.

He was of the view that the relief was inevitable as the federal government had no money and it was not improving the system.

In response to another question, he said that organising rallies was the right of political parties. “This is a sign of political instability,” Abbasi said when asked about placing containers in the federal capital to block the PTI’s gathering.

“With such measures, the never situation gets better. This means your system has failed and we have instability,” he said.