The Vice-President of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), Akbar Abdullah, and chairman of FPCCI standing committee on sugar, Amanullah Farouk, have called for intervention of the federal government to defuse the crisis being faced by the sugar mills in Sindh due to uncalled for threats from sugarcane growers.
In a statement, they said that the crisis has been caused due to 25 percent increase in the minimum sugarcane price by the government of Sindh on December 16, 2005 without consulting the Sugar Board or the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) and in total disregard of the procedure laid down in the Sugar Factories Control Act 1950 and in contravention of the decision taken at a meeting held under the chairmanship of Sindh Chief Minister on October 17, 2005 and participated by all stakeholders.
This unilateral decision of Sindh government had forced the sugar mills in the province to close down their factories and the representatives of the sugarcane growers have retaliated by announcing to take over the control of the sugar mills if the mills failed to resume crushing and purchasing sugarcane on the enhanced rates.
Since this dispute is the creation of the provincial government, FPCCI requested the federal industries minister to immediately intervene before the matter got out of hand and the sugarcane growers implemented their threat and created law and order problem in the province.
They said that it was ironical that while sugarcane prices had been fixed by the government sugar prices were left to be determined by free market forces. The pursuance of such a policy would be detrimental to promotion of industrialisation and vitiate the investment climate in the country.
The sugar mills association, Sindh Zone, had reservations even on the decision to fix minimum sugarcane price of Rs 48 per 40 kg against the price of Rs 42 in Punjab.
They said that the federal and provincial government of Sindh must provide congenial environment to trade and industry to function smoothly and peacefully with provision of reasonable earning as it is the fundamental right of the people enshrined in the constitution.-PR
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