Ministers ask governor to highlight ‘genuine issues’ of masses

Sindh Information and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani and Food Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla have advised Governor Imran Ismail to hold a press conference on the natural gas crisis and hikes in the prices of electricity, petrol and medicines to show that he is really concerned about the well-being of the people in the province.

Speaking at a joint press conference at the Sindh Assembly on Wednesday, the two ministers said the governor should better get accurate facts and figures before conducting a press conference to blame the Sindh government for the shortage of wheat in the province.

The food minister told media persons that the Sindh government had a stock of 375,000 tonnes of wheat till March 30, 2022, for providing it to the flour mills and chakkis in theprovince.

Chawla, who also holds the portfolio of the excise and taxation , said the governor, while addressing a press conference two days back, had wrongly accused the Sindh government of providing wheat in a less quantity to the flour mills in the province. He said people who accompanied the governor had been providing wrong information and statistics to him, as the statistics were used without any verification at the press conference to blame the provincial government.

He said that as a matter of fact all the flour mills were being provided with wheat in accordance with their quotas. He said the Sindh government last year had procured 1,250,000 tonnes of wheat, and to date all the flour mills and chakkis had been provided with sufficient quantities of the essential food commodity every month. He said the government regularly released 250,000 tonnes of wheat to the flour mills every month as half of this quantity went to 82 flour mills and chakkis based in Karachi. He asked the governor to hold a press conference on the increase in the withholding tax to be paid by the people at the time of registration of new motor vehicles.