Islamabad: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said that the government will reveal everything about those responsible for the wheat import scandal.
“We are putting everything before the nation,” said the bureaucrat leading the inquiry into the matter during a meeting with Prime Minister Shehbaz’s Cabinet Secretary Kamran Ali Afzal.
Directing Afzal to fix responsibility and inform those responsible in the case, the prime minister ordered the cabinet to prepare recommendations with available records and documents and submit the final report on Monday (tomorrow).
The Prime Minister’s speech drew the attention of the federal government about the problem after the Baluchistan and Punjab governments failed to procure grain from farmers due to excessive importation of crops.
Wheat is being sold at a price lower than the official rate due to non-buying of wheat by the provincial authorities – a concern for farmers.
A day earlier, former prime minister Kakar, speaking during an interview, denied his role in the ongoing crisis and said “it is not the duty of the prime minister to control wheat production”.
Pointing to the decision to import wheat, he said that only 3.4 million tons of crops were imported, with a shortfall of 4 million metric tons.
Sources in the Ministry of National Food Security informed Prime Minister Shehbaz’s cabinet that 28.18 million tons of wheat were produced last year and the interim government decided to import 2.45 million tons more.
It is said that the Prime Minister’s additional grain imports have cost the national exchequer more than $300 billion.
Prime Minister Shehbaz, who chaired the meeting in Lahore, assured that the government would purchase 1.8 million tonnes of wheat through the Pakistan Agriculture and Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) to ease the economic hardships of farmers.
Taking a serious note of the report on the condition of farmers, the Prime Minister said that there will be no compromise in the protection of the farmers’ economy and directed concerned officials to personally monitor the opportunity to purchase wheat.
In addition, Chief Minister Shehbaz established a national food security committee to ensure that farmers can buy wheat and solve their problems.
The council will take steps to protect the interests of the farmers within four days.
Meanwhile, Secretary Afzal, who informed the Chief Minister about the hurdles in the ongoing investigation, denied reports that Kakar and then Punjab Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi had been summoned by the investigation team.
“Neither the Prime Minister nor Mohsin Naqvi was called in the investigation,” he said.
More than 100,000 metric tons of stock
Exposing the controversy, government documents available to Geo News showed that the country had 113,529 tonnes of wheat reserves when Prime Minister Shehbaz took office.
A document that revealed that the government has imported wheat worth $98.5 billion shows that the Ministry of Finance on September 27, 2023 allowed the import of 0.5 million tons of wheat through the private sector during the dollar exchange. 305 against the local currency.
Imported wheat costs the government more than $93 per kilogram.
Meanwhile, former Food Security Secretary Mohammad Mehmood sent a summary of wheat imports to the Prime Minister, while the Maritime Ministry ordered to prioritize the arrival of imported wheat at the port.
The grain import permit allowed summary can be revised if necessary.
It also showed that 75% of the wheat procurement target from the province was achieved last year.
The wheat production target in the four provinces in 2023 is 28.18 million tons.
In 2022-23, the country has 1.63 million tonnes of wheat stocks.
Meanwhile, the document mentions the wheat quota for the armed forces (2022-23) of 175,000 tonnes for the Pakistan Army, 10,500 tonnes for the Pakistan Air Force and 2,200 tonnes for the Pakistan Navy.
For the provinces, the quota for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is 1.4 million tonnes, Gilgit-Baltistan 200,000 tonnes and Azad Kashmir 300,000 tonnes.
A quota of 400,000 metric tons of wheat is allocated for general stores and 244,810 metric tons for others.
In total, 2,732 million tons of wheat quota has been allocated to various institutions and provincial governments.
