Govt allows wheat transport, abolishes import duties

Decides to curb wheat smuggling, launch huge crackdown against hoarders

ISLAMABAD: The federal government on Sunday decided to lift the ban on inter-provincial transportation of wheat and abolish duties on import of the commodity in order to ensure its sufficient availability in the country.

A huge wheat crisis had emerged in January, which caused both the government and the masses a great deal of agony as its prices skyrocketed. Mill owners in Punjab, the largest province of the country population wise, claimed that there was no such crisis whereas the government officials termed it a propaganda against the leadership. However, the government promised to hold an investigation to unmask the ones responsible for the dilemma.

A team was formed under Federal Investigation Agency Director General Wajid Zia, which conducted an inquiry and submitted its report to the premier for perusal.

On April 5, being under immense pressure of colossal criticism which pointed out that the federal government’s own allies were involved in the setback, PM Imran disclosed the investigation report. He tweeted, “As promised preliminary reports into sudden price hikes of sugar and wheat have been released immediately without alteration/tampering. This is unprecedented in Pakistan’s history previous political leaderships because of their vested interests and compromises lacked moral courage to order and release such reports.”

The report declared that the wheat crisis took place due to Punjab Food Department’s weak policy regarding proper management of the respective affairs that led to failure in controlling the flour mills.

According to a statement issued by the Prime Minister Office, the decisions were taken in a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan to discuss the measures to meet the country's requirement of wheat and control the flour price.

The meeting decided that the government would allow inter-provincial transportation of wheat and remove all check posts established between the provinces to check its movement.

The government would also allow the import of wheat through private sector without any limit restriction.

The meeting decided to abolish six per cent and additional two per cent duties currently applicable on wheat import.

It was decided that the government would curb the smuggling of wheat and flour and launch a huge crackdown against the hoarders.

The meeting also discussed in detail the volume of wheat crop in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, procurement by the provincial governments, available stock and needs of the provinces.

With input from APP