The wheat crises can be predicted due to ill policies of the government as the organization that is responsible for the procurement of wheat i.e. Pakistan Agricultural Storage & Services Corporation Limited (PASSCO)is reluctant to buy the wheat from the farmers due to the reason that there is ample quantity of imported wheat in the warehouses that is over the storage capacity of the department. Secondly the plight of the stores is not in very good condition that can accommodate extra wheat.
Though on the demand of growers, the Prime Minister has announced to enhance the procurement target to 18 million tons from 14 million tons, but the agriculture department is not ready to buy wheat from them and they are forced to sell their crop at a loss.
The Ministry of National Food Security and Research had sought the permission of the government to import 3.5 million tons of wheat despite the fact that it had ample amounts of wheat already in the goodowns. In the first leg the permission was granted to import two million ton of wheat. But the import was deliberately delayed and then once again approval of the government was gained.
But the interesting fact is that when the government gave approval to import wheat then the incumbent Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif was then PM during the PDM led government, but when the consignment reached Pakistan then the interim government was looking after the affairs of the country.
When the consignment of the imported wheat reached Pakistan then at that time the wheat cultivation in Sindh province was ready and there was no need to import wheat but in spite of this heavy amount of foreign exchange was consumed to import wheat.
The situation not only has pushed the farmers into big difficulty but also caused a hefty loss of 1.5 billion dollars to the national exchequer. The government had a stock of 40 million tons on 1st April this year, and the crop from Punjab province is ready. Now the farmers are in deep water as their hard work of the whole year would go to waste if the government would not buy wheat from them. In case if the government would not buy wheat from the farmers then they would have left no option other than to sell their wheat either at throw away price or to sell it to the mafia that is behind the smuggling of wheat to Afghanistan.
It is the clear cut matter of corruption as it is quite obvious that some powerful elements minted money in the import of extra wheat without requirement, but this important issue cannot be left without taking notice of it.
If the Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif is serious about serving the country in a befitting manner and he wants some credibility among the people, then he has to start investigation in the matter to bring the real culprits to justice, who got kickbacks in the wheat import from abroad.
But it is fairly obvious that any action would not be taken and as usual the matter would be put in doldrums as when the approval for importing the commodity was given, unluckily the current PM himself was prime minister of the country.
