PRIME Minister Imran Khan on Monday directed all the provincial chief secretaries to evolve a coordinated strategy under the chairmanship of Minister for National Food Security Syed Fakhar Imam and ensure availability of sufficient stock of wheat in every province along with the uniform price of the commodity in all the federating units. Chairing a meeting to review the steps taken to reduce the prices of edible items, PM Imran said that provision of wheat and flour at affordable prices and their unhindered availability was the top priority of his government. He also issued a warning to profiteers and hoarders of sugar.
Uninterrupted availability and their affordable pricing is crucial as hoarding and profiteering affects the common man and, therefore, the Prime Minister is rightly focusing on the issue. He has chaired numerous meetings on the subject and issued warnings but the ground situation has so far not changed as far as trickle-down effects of the policies and programmes of the Government is concerned. We have been emphasizing in these columns that the real objective of investigations into sugar and wheat crises was to ensure their adequate supply in all parts of the country and bring down their prices, which were artificially jacked up by mafias to earn undue profits at the cost of the common man. However, so far the inquiry reports have been used for political point scoring and the prices of both wheat flour and sugar are not only not coming down but showing upward trend. This is a serious challenge to the writ of the Government and hopefully the Committee formed by the Prime Minister under the chairmanship of the Food Minister would lay its focus on the core issue of bringing the prices down. The issue is not restricted to wheat flour and sugar alone as prices of other items like edible oil are also not being reduced by the vested interests despite their fall in the international market. The premier has rightly observed that elements involved in profiteering and hoarding had not only deprived the growers of their due profit but also compelled the common citizens to buy flour at exorbitant rates. The mafia is neither paying procurement price fixed by the Government to growers nor it is providing these commodities to people at justifiable prices. But the question arises who will check the mafia and safeguard interests of the people. The prices also have much to do with the fundamentally flawed approach of hiking prices of POL products and rates of both electricity and gas, which are already on the higher side in Pakistan. Therefore, mere pronouncements would not ease the situation until and unless these policies are reviewed.
