Punjab Assembly: ‘Farmers being fleeced by sugar mill owners’

LAHORE:

Punjab Assembly’s 11th session on Friday opened to hue and cry from both treasury and opposition benches over the government’s failure in stabilising the price of sugarcane.

More than 10 lawmakers presented their reservations in this regard. MPA Ejaz Shafi said most sugar mills had bought sugar cane at prices lower than that set by the government. “It is ridiculous how farmers are being extorted by mill owners. If this continues there will be losses worth millions of rupees.”

The ruckus over the issue continued despite calls for order from Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan.

“Does the Punjab have no government?” asked MPA Dr Syed Waseem Akhtar. He said the price the government had set was Rs180 per maund. “Sugar mills’ owners are paying Rs150 per maund.”

When asked about the standard price for sugar cane, Law Minister Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman was caught unawares. He said Food Minister Bilal Yasin would look into the matter on Monday.

The speaker asked the law minister to make sure that the cane commissioner and the food minister met at the speaker’s chambers on Monday to decide on a strategy in this regard.

Two MPAs tried to raise the issue of manhandling of visually-impaired protesters by police on The Mall, but the speaker asked for their microphones to be switched off.

Rehman said the matter had been settled and the government had increased the job quota for them from 2 per cent to 3 per cent. MPA Zaeem Qadri said the right to protest was protected under the Constitution and it was the state’s responsibility to ensure that the right was upheld.

Earlier, Inamullah Niazi from Bhakkar and MPA Hasan Riaz from Sheikhupura took the oath. MPA Riaz said it was a matter of pride for him to have been elected from the seat represented earlier by his late brother Khurram Gulfam. Niazi gave an impassioned speech. He said it was unfortunate that there had been no development in Bhakkar for several years even though Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Shahbaz Sharif had both won seats there.

Niazi, a cousin of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan, said Khan was being played at the hands of his party’s leadership. “If PTI lawmakers wanted to resign from the parliament they would have presented their resignations on the assembly floor like Javed Hashmi did.”

He said the PML-N had not supported him in the by-elections. “But they are a thousand times better than the PTI.”

Rehman said they was not putting off local elections. “The issue of delimitations has been handed over to the ECP.” He said the elections will commence once the delimitations are over.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2014.