Looming sugar crisis?

We are in a season of crises. One crisis is coming after the other. In this winter of our discontent, first emerged the gas crisis which is stubbornly persisting, then came the wheat and wheat flour crisis and now there is a sugar crisis in the making. All these crises bite all segments of society. Sugar price has risen as a high as Rs64 a kilo over the past 14 months. Over the past one week, wholesale prices of sugar have increased from Rs64 to Rs74 a kg. Business circles fear that the country might experience a severe shortage of sugar soon. In about a week, the price of sugar is expected to touch Rs80 a kg in the wholesale market. The country is expected to produce 5.5 million tons of sugar this year, showing a decrease of 5% over last year’s output.

Traders have demanded of the government to stop the export of sugar and take measures to curb speculation in the commodity to avert the looming crisis. They say the shortage of sugar would also occur because of unplanned estimates of consumption within the country and its exports like it happened in the case of wheat and wheat flour.

The cost of food in Pakistan has increased 16.88% in December 2019 over the same month in the previous year. With increasing prices of wheat flour, the ever-increasing rates of gas and power and the feared rise in sugar prices and the rising prices of all food items, the food inflation is likely soar to new highs. The price of sugar had risen as high as Rs105 a kilo during the Musharraf regime. The then Chief Justice of Pakistan had ordered shopkeepers to sell the commodity at lower prices, but to no avail. The sickening regularity with which crises and shortages of foodstuffs are occurring in an agricultural country only shows that corruption, mismanagement and incompetence have now been brought to a lunatic level.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 22^nd, 2020.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.