The Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) and government team parted ways at the end of the meeting convened here on Tuesday to discuss commissioning of sugarcane crushing season 2004-05. The PSMA delegation in its brief talk with newsmen gave the impression as if the government side had agreed to take the plan of selling buffer sugar stocks through the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) back to the Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet for its reversal.
To a question, PSMA Chief Chaudhry Zaka Ashraf said, "The government side has agreed to take buffer sugar stock sell-off plan to the ECC for holding its decision back, so that commodity prices do not suffer setback in the coming days. In return the PSMA would ensure commissioning of crushing season from November 1."
Food Minister Sikander Bosan denied the agreement on reversal of the TCP sugar sell-off plan in his comments.
The minister said the PSMA team had agreed to uphold its commitment for entering into crushing season from November 1, without any condition. The minister recalled that the government has many options to ensure that the mill-owners do not delay commissioning of the crushing season.
Sources said the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association team faced ugly situation from the very beginning of the meeting when one of the three ministers who are members of the sugar committee sought explanation that why the mill-owners were issuing statements to the media of delaying crushing when the matter was yet to be decided.
The PSMA delegation managed to keep ball rolling despite hard attitude of the government team by reminding it that instead of the mill-owners it was the government which breached its commitment reached in May this year regarding commissioning of the crushing season by offloading buffer stocks of sugar through the Trading Corporation of Pakistan.
The PSMA team argued at the meeting that the release of buffer stocks was serious threat to the mill-owners and it could bar them from starting crushing season from November 1.
The PSMA team demanded of the government that it should sell buffer stocks when required in case of shortage and that too at higher rates. In its point of view, the Trading Corporation of Pakistan should fix rate of Rs 20 per kilogramme for its stocks for the open market so that the commodity prices do not crash due to heavy and untimely injection of buffer stocks.
The sources said the food minister talked to Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim to discuss the prospects of cane crushing from October 20.
They said the Sindh chief minister asked the federal food minister to leave this matter to him. Arbab assured the federal food minister that it was his business to ensure commissioning of crushing season from October 20.
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