Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Emir Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman has said petrol prices could fall by as much as Rs106 per litre if the government abolishes the petroleum levy and removes certain taxes on the commodity, as his party’s weeks-long protest campaign against fuel prices heads toward a critical government meeting on Thursday.

Speaking on Geo News’ programme Capital Talk, Naeem said the petroleum levy had been imposed by the government to hide its own failures, arguing that global oil price movements had nothing to do with the levy itself. His remarks came a day after the Petroleum Division raised petrol and high-speed diesel prices by Rs12.90 and Rs3.72 per litre respectively, under the fortnightly review, a hike Naeem called “a great injustice” that could have been avoided had the government reduced the levy instead of passing the full burden onto consumers.

According to Naeem, the government has collected Rs1,567 billion in petroleum levy over the past year alone, a figure he cited as evidence that the levy functions less as an energy policy tool and more as a steady revenue stream detached from what is actually happening in international oil markets. He also argued that a 3 percent cut in the State Bank’s policy rate could free up more than Rs1,600 billion, suggesting the government has multiple fiscal levers available if it chose to prioritise consumer relief over revenue collection. He called on opposition parties to formally join the JI’s protest movement, framing the levy issue as a public concern rather than a political one, saying the party wanted support “because it is a public issue,” not because it serves any electoral agenda.

The current government currently levies Rs114 per litre in taxes and duties on petrol and roughly Rs100 per litre on high-speed diesel, figures that have become central to the JI’s argument that a significant share of what consumers pay at the pump has little to do with the actual cost of the product. Naeem has previously described this structure as a “jagga tax,” a term he has used repeatedly at protest gatherings to suggest the levy functions more like extortion than legitimate taxation, and has claimed that taxes of around Rs130 are effectively built into the price of petroleum products, with the government directly collecting more than Rs105 of that figure.

Thursday’s statement is the latest escalation in a standoff that has been building for weeks. The JI’s protest campaign began gaining momentum in late August, when the party held sit-ins that, by its own count, have now stretched well past three weeks. Addressing one such gathering in Lahore, Naeem said the demonstrations had drawn people from different sectors of society and had helped raise public awareness of the levy issue, describing a nationwide strike held on September 3 as only “a rehearsal” for further action if the government failed to respond.

Following that strike, the government reached out to the JI, and a first round of formal negotiations was held earlier this week between a JI technical delegation, led by Deputy Amir Liaquat Baloch and including party figures such as Syed Farasat Shah, Nasrullah Randhawa, Inayatullah Khan, Zia-ur-Rehman Ansari, Naveed Ali Baig and Shahid Naeem, and a government team headed by Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal, alongside Adviser to the Prime Minister Rana Sanaullah, Petroleum Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik and Minister of State for Finance Bilal Azhar Kayani. The JI formally submitted six detailed proposals on September 7 aimed at phasing out the levy while addressing the government’s revenue needs through alternative measures, with Baloch telling journalists after the meeting that the proposals had been presented to the prime minister’s designated team for consideration.

Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal has said the proposals were forwarded to the relevant ministries for review and should be implemented “without delay” if found feasible, striking a notably more conciliatory tone than the government’s earlier position. At the same time, Iqbal has pointed to Pakistan’s commitments under its IMF programme as a real constraint on how quickly or fully the levy can be removed, telling reporters that petrol prices had risen due to “regional conditions” and clarifying that decisions on the policy rate rest with the State Bank of Pakistan rather than the federal government. According to Naeem, government representatives have told the JI directly that abolishing the levy outright is not straightforward given these fiscal targets, though he maintains his party’s proposals offer a workable path that would not jeopardise the IMF relationship.

Naeem had earlier warned that if Thursday’s meeting does not produce a positive response from the government, he would announce a long march toward Islamabad on September 10, a threat that places the outcome of today’s talks squarely in the spotlight and adds real urgency to negotiations that might otherwise have dragged on for weeks. The JI has kept other pressure tactics in reserve as well, including a possible nationwide wheel-jam and shutter-down strike and the closure of petrol stations, with Naeem previously telling supporters that the party had “three options” if talks failed to produce results. He has also floated the idea of a public referendum on the levy, joking that it would be based on “Form 45, not Form 47,” a pointed reference to Pakistan’s disputed election-results forms that drew a mix of laughter and applause at rally.

The party has framed its campaign in broader terms than fuel prices alone, tying the levy to wider claims about inflation and economic hardship. At one press conference, Naeem cited government data suggesting more than 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, and argued that roughly 95 percent of people are struggling to meet basic needs. He has also alleged that more than Rs8 trillion has been collected through the petroleum levy over the years, money he says was originally intended to fund refinery upgrades but has instead been absorbed into general government spending, and has pointed to what he calls more than Rs5 trillion in FBR-related corruption over the past four years as further evidence that the state is mismanaging the revenue it already collects.

For millions of consumers already grappling with a petrol price hovering near Rs364 per litre and diesel near Rs386, the outcome of this standoff carries direct financial weight far beyond the political theatre surrounding it. A reduction of Rs106 per litre, if it were ever fully realised, would represent close to a 30 percent cut in the pump price, with knock-on effects for transport costs, food prices and household budgets across the country. Whether Thursday’s meeting produces the kind of movement the JI is demanding, or simply becomes another entry in a negotiation that has already stretched over weeks, is likely to shape not just the immediate fuel price outlook but also the trajectory of a protest movement that has shown little sign of losing momentum.

Compiled by the Weekly PK National Desk.