FIA to conduct sugar raids; hoarders given two days

ISLAMABAD: With sugar prices skyrocketing and hitting Rs110 to Rs125 per kilogram, a showdown appears to be in the offing between the Punjab government and the federal government after the federal cabinet decided on Wednesday to use intelligence network to trace sugar hoarders and confiscate their stocks.

In what the PML-N termed a political stunt, the cabinet authorised Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Wednesday to act against sugar hoarders and force them to release their stocks in the market to bring the price down.

The minister has asked hoarders manipulating prices to declare their stocks in two days and warned them of stern action if they did not do so.

“You will be in deep trouble when my boys come after you,” Mr Malik told hoarders. He offered a hefty reward of 10 per cent of confiscated stocks to people providing information about the concealed stocks.

Though Mr Malik did not announce how his ministry would trace the hoarded sugar, an official of the interior ministry said that the Federal Intelligence Agency would be used for the purpose.

“Raids would be conducted by taking local police into confidence and in close coordination with relevant provincial authorities,” the official said.

He, however, pointed out that this could be seen as “interference” in the jurisdiction of provinces.

The federal government says that sugar mills have 200,000 tons of sugar and wholesalers and retailers have stocks of 170,000 tons.

The government took action in 2008 against owners of sugar mills and wholesalers, but the action was taken only against the mills owned by political families outside the PPP fold.

Talking to Dawn PML-N spokesman Ahsan Iqbal claimed that the entire game was to politicise the issue and blame the Punjab government for the crisis.

“They will try to prove this point by showing some success in Punjab, but the fact is that the federal government is hiding the fact that the country is facing sugar shortage and the government has not imported it in time,” Mr Iqbal said.

“It is often said by PPP leaders that the Punjab government has failed to control sugar prices, I have asked PPP leaders to say what is the price of sugar in Sukkur?”

The PML-N leader asserted that raids and confiscation of stocks would only disturb the supply channel and market mechanism.

Even wholesalers and the millers were up in arms against the government decision to use intelligence network to confiscate stocks.

He termed it a political stunt and said that prices were moving upwards mainly because of the failure of the policies of the federal government.

According to wholesalers, raids at a time of shortage, would only scare the business community. They said the largest sugar stocks were still held by the Trading Corporation of Pakistan.

“The federal government should first conduct a raid on the TCP,” said Anis Majeed, Chairman of the Karachi Wholesale Grocers Group, adding: “The government will lose all claims before the court because before any raid the policy has to be made clear.”

They said that earlier actions and decisions by government functionaries and the judiciary had only led to disappearance of sugar from the market and further increase in the price.