Sugar mafia becomes active, appeals to PML-N govt to allow exports

The sugar mafia has once again activated in the country as the sugar mills association appealed to the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) government to allow surplus sugar exports.

The Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) published an ad in an English daily titled, “Earn $1 billion through surplus sugar export’

It read, “Pakistan is striving hard to save & earn every Dollar through different means even to the extent of borrowing. Pakistan is blessed with a huge sugar surplus from domestic consumption having a tremendous export value in the world. The Pakistani government needs to focus immediately on this treasure not required in the country, but can reward the nation within shortest possible time.

The opportunity is to be grabbed before it is too late as the international players are already geared up to capture the market. This will save the sugarcane growers, the Sugar Mills & the domestic market in current & future seasons from huge losses. Steer the Sugar Industry & Sugarcane Growers out of the coming crisis.

Analysts said that the PSMA proposal would open doors for the sugar mafia to export sugar stocks to foreign country which will create an artificial shortage here in our markets. They added that the same stock of sugar will be imported once again to Pakistan with the highest prices as the sugar mafia did in the past.

In April 2020, two much-awaited reports on the recent sugar and wheat crises in the country had been made public, exposing ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s bigwig Jahangir Tareen and allied parties’ leaders federal Minister for Food Security Khusro Bakhtiar, Monis Elahi of PML-Q or their relatives as being involved in the sugar scam.

The reports were made public on the directives of former prime minister Imran Khan who had ordered stern action against those found involved in the crises ‘irrespective of their status and party affiliation’.

The inquiry committee, headed by Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) director general Wajid Zia, had prepared the reports. One is about the sugar crisis, its high prices and the subsidy obtained by sugar barons during last year in particular and past four years in general.

In the second report, the reasons and persons behind the wheat or wheat flour crisis have been exposed. As soon as the reports were presented to the former PM Imran Khan he issued orders to make them public despite the prime minister and members of the inquiry commission were ‘threatened with dire consequences if the reports were made public’., according to Dawn newspaper.

The report on sugar revealed that two main groups had obtained maximum benefit during the crisis; one of the groups JWD belonging to Mr Tareen, which has six sugar mills, obtained 12.28 per cent of the total export subsidy amounting to Rs3.058 billion during 2015-18. Makhdoom Syed Ahmed Mehmood is a partner in this group.

The ex-prime minister saw the report and was pleased to observe that the inquiry committee had probed the export and related subsidy for the year 2018-19. The report reveals that in the past few years the production of sugar was historically more than the local requirement, therefore it is imperative to probe and include this aspect related to export of sugar including any subsidy given, its impact on local sugar prices and eventually major beneficiaries of such export subsidies, if any.