• Thursday, March 28, 2024

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Pakistan’s civil aviation employee seeks permission to ride donkey cart to work over soaring fuel prices

“Please allow me to bring my donkey cart to the airport,” the man said.

FILE PHOTO: A labourer wearing a facemask rides on his loaded donkey cart in Karachi on April 14, 2020. (Photo by ASIF HASSAN/AFP via Getty Images)

By: Pramod Thomas

AN employee of Pakistan’s civil aviation authority has sought permission to ride a donkey cart to work after the government once again raised the fuel prices, according to a media report.

In a letter to the director-general of the civil aviation authority (CAA), Raja Asif Iqbal, who has been in service for 25 years and is now working at the Islamabad International Airport, said that inflation had not just “broken the backs of the poor, but also the middle class”, the Dawn newspaper reported.

He sought permission to be allowed to bring a donkey cart into the CAA parking lot, it said.

“In this inflation, the organisation has halted the transport facility. Due to the rising petrol prices, it has become impossible to use personal transport.

“Please allow me to bring my donkey cart to the airport,” the man said.

However, CAA spokesperson Saifullah Khan said that every member of the staff is paid a fuel allowance

“They are provided with a pick-and-drop service. A metro bus service is also available for the employees at the airport,” he said.

Khan added that the application was “nothing more than a media stunt”.

The government on Friday (3) hiked fuel prices, a week after the last hike.

Speaking at a news conference, finance minister Miftah Ismail said that he could not let the country go bankrupt because of the “wrong decisions” of the previous Imran Khan government as international prices were going up and the government was suffering losses on petroleum subsidies.

(PTI)

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