ECC, cabinet decisions led to sugar price hike: Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has said the decisions taken by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) and the federal cabinet led to a hike in sugar prices across the country earlier this year.

The PML-N leader was talking to media outside the Federal Investigation Agency’s headquarters, where he met wheat and sugar crisis inquiry commission head Wajid Zia to record his statement, Geo News reported.

In his media talk, Abbasi said he presented “all the facts” before the commission.

He said the Prime Minister should ask his cabinet regarding the increase in rates of sugar, adding the green signal to export sugar was given despite no surplus amount of the commodity was available in the country.

Abbasi said for sixteen months, the export of sugar continued but the government did not take any notice. He said there should be a tax on imports so it is not possible to import sugar. While speaking about PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif and the recent Cholistan Development Authority case, he said the NAB chairman is unable to see sugar, medicine and other crisis.

“This is the situation that they kept opposition leaders in prison yet could not make a case,” he said. Abbasi said during the PML-N tenure, the government gave a subsidy of more than Rs20 billion for sugar, which is why the prices did not rise even by a penny.

Abbasi said the commission should summon Prime Minister Imran Khan and the head of the ECC if it wanted to get to the bottom of the hike in sugar crisis.

A report by the FIA, released on April 4, claimed top Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf members were among those who allegedly gained from the recent sugar crisis in the country. An investigation into the crisis had been ordered by Prime Minister Imran Khan in February.