The announcement of the Economic Co-ordination Committee of the Cabinet to hold investigation into profiteering by sugar mills, after wilfully ignoring the sugar scam for full five months is yet another cruel joke played with the people, said Taj Haider, Information Secretary of the Pakistan Peoples Party in a press statement issued on Saturday.
Taj Haider said that if the rulers were really serious about nabbing those responsible for this scam "they should look for them in their own ranks".
The law in Sindh makes it mandatory for the sugar mills to start crushing cane by the 15th of October, he said adding it gives the cane commissioner the power to arrest a mill owner, who does not comply with the start of the crushing date, as also to take over his mill.
The PPP leader said investigation, if any, should start by getting hold of those in power who were a part of this conspiracy to fleece the people. "Against those, who chose to ignore the law and facilitated the interminably long delays in starting the mills."
He said government's long standing economic policy of converting manufacturers into importers had come into full play in the present sugar scam. Besides other disasters this policy has resulted in a yawning trade gap that threatens to almost equal our total exports of commodities this year.
Taj Haider charged it were the sugar mills, who in full view of the authorities and with heavy financing from the banks and the brokers, were themselves importing sugar from as far as Brazil during the cane crushing season and hoarding it.
The government provided a timely shot in the arm enabling the hoarders to multiply their profits by purchasing 300,000 tons of sugar at 380 dollars per ton, when the rates in the international market were hovering around 250 dollars per ton, he claimed. "This was the master stroke played by the concerned ministry, which skyrocketed the internal and international prices of sugar almost on an hourly basis."
The PPP leader said the adverse impacts on the national agriculture resulting from drop in sucrose content and drying up of sugarcane standing in the fields, the delay in sowing the Rabi crop, the needless waste of Rabi waters allocated for sowing wheat for keeping the sugarcane intact, would be far reaching.
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