Trading food: Food dept officials suspended for selling ‘official’ wheat

District food controller, food inspectors caught selling 13,000 wheat bags worth Rs50m.

SUKKUR: Three officials from food department were suspended for selling wheat worth millions of rupees in the open market.

At a routine checkup, more than 13,000 wheat bags worth Rs50 million were found missing from the warehouse of Garhi Khairo, Jacobabad. The authorities suspended the district food controller and two food inspectors on their alleged involvement in the scam. The district food controller Ziauddin Shaikh has been ordered to report to the head office in Karachi, while food inspectors, Saifullah Bhatti and Ali Raza Buledi, have been suspended. The food secretary has ordered an inquiry into the matter.



Rafiq Ahmed Qazi has taken over charge as the food controller. “After going through the relevant records the next few days, I will share the details with the media,” he promised. The Express Tribune tried to contact the former district food controller but he was unavailable for contact. The deputy director of the food department in Larkana, Sarfaraz Mahoto, was also unavailable for comments.

Some officials in the food department said that selling wheat in the open market by food officials is a common practice but there are no checks and balances. As per the rules, if a food inspector is found guilty of selling wheat in the market and is suspended, he is asked to deposit the amount of the wheat sold based on the government rates. This usually allows them to pocket some money as the government rates are usually lower than the one they sell them in the market for. “This practice is continuing due to laxity of the departmental rules,” an official said.

During the 2010 floods, most of the warehouses in different parts of upper Sindh remained under water for more than a month, resulting in a large amount of wheat going to waste. The 2010 floods proved beneficial for some corrupt food officials, who sold a huge quantity of this wheat in the open market, an official claimed.

According to sources, thousands of wheat bags were stored in the warehouses of influential landlords in Jacobabad. The high-ups had taken notice of the practice and had suspended a few officials for their negligence but the same officials resumed their offices through political influences, sources added.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd, 2013.