ISLAMABAD: There is another FIA report on wheat - Supplementary Report II - which clearly holds Federal Minister Sahibzada Mehboob Sultan, KP minister Qalandar Lodhi, Punjab Food Minister Sami Ullah Choudhry and others responsible for the wheat and flour crisis in the country.
Regarding Sindh, the report said that the Sindh cabinet did not take any decision on the summaries moved by the Food Department for procurement in 2019 with the result no procurement could be made. There are speculations by some quarters that this was done to provide an opportunity to businessmen close to the political elite to enable them to buy and hoard wheat stocks and later sell the same at higher rates.
Interestingly, most of those held responsible by the FIA in wheat scam, are still continuing and no action has been taken against them. Only federal secretary food was made OSD whereas Punjab Food Minister Sami Ullah Choudhry and ex-food secretary Naseem Sadiq recently resigned on their own after the report was made public recently.
The News Wednesday published parts of FIA’s Supplementary Report-I, which most importantly covers the interview of Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar, for his highly contentious role of changing four food secretaries and dozens of other Food Department officials repeatedly and prematurely, which led to the wheat scam.
The FIA’s Supplementary Report-II on wheat scam primarily covers the versions of those held responsible but could not be interviewed previously.
The FIA reports on wheat are conclusive but the prime minister has not yet taken action against all those held responsible by the FIA. As against wheat scam, the FIA inquiry committee did submit its report on sugar but the government later decided to make Sugar Commission, which will submit its report on April 25. It means sugar report is not conclusive as yet but in the case of wheat and flour scam, the FIA has concluded its probe and submitted all three reports to the prime minister.
According to the Supplementary Report-II the then Federal Food Minister and now Minister Safron Sahibzada Mehboob Sultan told the FIA team that he personally stayed in regular contact with the then Passco MD and regularly instructed him to meet the target of procurement. Sultan said that Passco MD had concerned over the quality of wheat available for procurement.
The minister, the report said, stated that he directed the MD not to compromise on the quality of wheat being procured. In the opinion of the minister, the quality issues might have played a role in the shortfall.
The FIA, however, concluded that the explanation given by the federal minister does not hold much ground as Passco had an open field to procure wheat both in Sindh and Punjab. In the case of Sindh, the provincial government did not procure any wheat whereas the Punjab government started late procurement. In this situation, Passco could have easily met its procurement target.
The report also revealed that the Ministry of Food secretary put a number of summaries before the ECC in May and June 2019 in which the ministry termed the procurement of Passco and Punjab as per target whereas both the entities were well short of meeting their targets.
It added that in the case of Sindh, these summaries did not mention zero procurement there. “These summaries did not provide the ECC with the correct picture of public procurement and therefore, the ECC could not make well-informed policy decision.”
These summaries, moved by the then secretary food, were placed before the ECC after the approval of the minister. The minister was asked as to why the ministry failed to bring before the ECC the actual facts regarding the state of public procurement, but he could not give any justification to the FIA.
The FIA team also interviewed KP’s Food Minister Qalandar Lodhi and KP ex-director Food Saadat Hussain. During the personal hearing before the FIA’s inquiry committee, both took similar stance.
According to the report, they stated that KP is a wheat deficient province and that it primarily depends on Punjab and to some extent on Sindh to meet its wheat requirement. In the case of public procurement too, they added, KP heavily depends on the supply of wheat from the neighbouring districts of Punjab.
They told the FIA that in 2019, the province could not meet its target because of restrictions imposed by Punjab on wheat movement to KP in the month of May 2019.
The FIA team observed that the harvesting season in Punjab starts around mid-April and the ban on transportation of wheat was imposed by Punjab on May 17. KP Food Department had ample time before the imposition of ban to procure the wheat from adjacent districts of Punjab.
The report said that the KP minister and the official could not justify if the massive procurement shortfall could be attributed entirely to the imposition of temporary ban on wheat movement.
“It is beyond comprehension that the KP Food Department could manage to meet only 17 percent of its procurement target in 2019 whereas KP used to meet 70 to 80 percent of its procurement target during previous years,” the report said.
The FIA Committee held the KP’s Food Minister and Director Food responsible for failure to meet procurement target.
The report said that the KP Food Minister, along with the secretary and KP Food Department director, has been identified responsible for failure to meet the procurement target in KP.
The FIA Committee interviewed Punjab Food Minister Sami Ullah Choudhry and Punjab Food ex-director Dr Zafar Iqbal Shakir.
Sami Ullah Choudhry stated that Punjab Food Department suffered from bad public perception and there were serious malpractices at the grassroots level. The Punjab food minister added that he had a policy to weed out corrupt elements and wanted to introduce reforms in the recruitment process.
When asked if any of his reform ideas were implemented or any reform process was formally initiated, he stated that he has verbally directed the Food Secretaries but none of his ideas have been implemented or even formally initiated.
The FIA Inquiry Committee said that the reform in Punjab Food Department are pre-requisite for addressing the malpractices in the department but no initiatives were taken. The FIA concluded that the responsibility attributed to Punjab Food Minister in the agency’s earlier report to the extent of failure to devise reform agenda to address the chronic ailments in the functioning of Punjab Food Department stands unchanged.
According to the FIA, the effective functioning and efficient operations of Punjab Food Department are of critical importance for the national food security and market stability. “However, Punjab Food Department is afflicted with deep-rooted ailments at every stage of its operations, i.e. procurement, storage, distribution, grinding of wheat and supply of flour to the market.”
Regarding Sindh, the report said that the Sindh cabinet did not take any decision on the summaries moved by the Food Department for procurement in 2019 with the result no procurement could be made. There are speculations by some quarters that this was done to provide an opportunity to businessmen close to the political elite to enable them to buy and hoard wheat stocks and later sell the same at higher rates.
