Five mills face action over flour export scam

Food dept issues show cause notices over rebate claimed in 2017

LAHORE:

The Punjab Food Department has initiated action against five flour mills suspected of receiving millions of rupees in rebate without exporting the commodity to Afghanistan in 2017.

According to sources, the official wheat quota of the five mills has been suspended and show cause notices have been issued to them. The recovery of Rs160 million from the guarantor banks of three mills owned by the father of a PML-N MPA has been adjusted against the loans of the department, the sources said. In addition, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has expanded the scope of its investigation into irregularities in wheat export. Flour mill owners and customs and food department officials are being questioned in this regard. The department had started an export scheme in 2017 with a rebate of $120 per tonne for disposing of excess reserves.

Of the rebate, $70 was to be paid by the federal government and $50 by Punjab. Under the export procedure, the approved exporter had to produce flour after taking wheat from the food department and send it to Afghanistan. After the export, the customs and bank documents had to be submitted to the food department. The department sent the documents to customs officials for verification, after which the Punjab government sent a letter to the federal government to pay the rebate after paying its own share. The sources said the customs authorities sent a letter to the food department in 2017 for verification regarding the mills and private groups exporting flour through the Torkham and Chaman borders.

While the department was preparing its response, customs officials sent another letter stating that according to their record only some of the groups had exported flour, while others had submitted fake documents. The sources said customs officials had accused the Meraj, Shadab, Umar, Kohistan and Ahmed flour mills and some others of fraud in export.