Wheat flour crisis deepens amid blame game
Amid an unprecedented price hike, another crisis in the form of wheat flour shortage has hit people across the country while the government and other stakeholders pass on the buck to one another instead of taking the responsibility and finding a remedy.
The crisis, which has been looming for the past several months, became severe only a day after Prime Minister Imran Khan had issued orders to the provincial governments to play an active role in curbing food prices, profiteering and hoarding.
The nanbais of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have announced that they will go on a strike tomorrow (Monday) against the government, as their various associations in Punjab have given a five-day ultimatum to the government asking it to provide them flour at the previous rate or allow them to raise the prices of naan and roti.
While the flour crisis equally hit all the four provinces and the federal capital, those at the helm of affairs on Saturday politicised the issue with the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led federal and provincial governments of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa blaming the Pakistan Peoples Party-ruled Sindh for wheat shortage. However, the Sindh government held the Centre responsible for the wheat crisis and subsequent increase in flour prices.
According to National Food Security (NFS) secretary Hashim Popalzai, the recent strike of transporters was the main reason behind short supply of wheat as mills did not get wheat on time. He believed the “temporary” crisis would be over within days and the situation would further improve with the arrival of new wheat crop in Sindh by March 20 and in Punjab by April 15.
Mr Popalzai alleged the Sindh government had been asked to purchase 14 million tonnes of wheat, but the provincial government did not pay heed. He said the country’s total monthly requirement of wheat was 2.2 million tonnes and the government already had 4.2 million tonnes wheat in its stock.
Former secretary general of the PTI Jahangir Tareen, who was at the temporary headquarters of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan in Karachi, said flour price would soon come down as the “federal government has decided to allow duty-free import of wheat”.
Mr Tareen, who was part of a PTI team formed by PM Khan to appease its allies, said the federal government had provided 400,000 tonnes of wheat to the Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Cooperation (Passco) some two months ago when the crisis had just begun.