In the belly of the beast

It’s time federation takes a leaf out of PFA’s book by appointing heads with fire in their eyes and autonomy in work

There’s a city with food in its heart. The good citizens dream of falooda, debate the healing powers of haleem, and inhale karahi from Lakshmi. They arrange their workdays around their lunch hours, drive down the same streets where Ranjit Singh once stuffed himself, and overdose on paratha kebabs.

Welcome to Lahore, where the citizenry live to eat, and the city bird is the murgh chola. But there’s trouble in paradise or — more specifically — blood in the freezer.



There are dead flies in the sweet cabinets (New Butt), cockroaches in the chillers (Hotel Crown), rat droppings in the spices store (Nayyab Hall), uncovered drains in the back (Chacha Chamaan Bawarchi), expired food in the front (Kashmir Bakers), and — a cult favourite — ‘kalonji feces’ in the canteens (Government College).

All of the humanity is documented — in varying stages of grossness — in neat little camera-phone shots across social media.

Lahoris everywhere weep with rage. Then reports of donkey meat filter through; sold at restaurants and consumed by fatties throughout the land. And that’s when Lahore begins hearing the jokes and jeers of a distant city by the sea.

Gaddha gosht, the Karachi boys say. You are what you eat, the Karachi boys say. So Lahore vows revenge: their kitchen — their temple — is dirty, and it’s time for a cleanse. Which brings us to the movers and shakers behind the blitz: the Punjab Food Authority (PFA). What sounds like another stuffy bureaucracy now strikes fear in the hearts of man (cholesterol-clogged and otherwise). Set up in 2011, even the PFA’s seal is sinister: a plant twisting up from the earth in the shape of a fork.

But the blitz is down to the food authority’s field marshal: Ms Ayesha Mumtaz, Director of Operations. Ms Mumtaz is a one-woman Zarb-e-Azb for restaurants in Punjab, raiding everything from roadside dhabas to cutesy cafes. And after 14 years in the civil service, some spent facing off transporters in Badami Bagh, she does not tread gently.

Taking office on June 1, it’s taken the lady minutes to do the impossible: shatter Lahoris’ shatterproof complacency. From fines to seals to seizures, Ms Mumtaz isn’t merciful.

To cheers from the crowd: in the land of the gol gappa, the director has been hailed as a heroine. Her success is down to three counts: a famously nervy Punjab government granting her autonomy; a work ethic that’s inspected thousands of eateries in 113 days; and using social media as it’s meant to be.

Ms Mumtaz bypasses the press and pundits, and lets consumers decide for themselves; posting photos of dirty bread rolls straight to the PFA’s Facebook page. And the People of the Internet, an angry bunch at the best of times, are loving it.

A few want vengeance. One user taunts, “Ma’am, maza tab aye ga jab aap **** ki biscuit factory pe raid karo gay. Wahan aap dartay huway jaatay nahin.” Bang comes the reply 50 minutes later, “Where is it located?”

All biscuit factories stand warned — this director fears nothing.

But it’s not just the biscuit boys that are feeling the pinch. The Lahore Restaurant Association (LRA), a plucky band of eateries up to their ears in fines, is crying foul. It posts on its website in frantic all-caps asking for seal receipts, as “WE ARE IN THE FINAL STAGE TO [FILE] A WRIT AGAINST PFA”.

For the LRA, the authority may well be the Inquisition; desperados that burst through the backdoor at any mention of their name, with no notice, no procedure, and no training.

“Do you think you need to test food in a laboratory if it stinks?” Ms Mumtaz told this paper’s Imran Adnan. “Do you think there is a need for a test if the freezers are rusty or have congealed blood everywhere?”

In any event, the PFA is powered by the 2011’s Punjab Food Authority Act, but it’s gotten a brand new steroid injection with the Food Authority Amendment Ordinance last month. The amendment punishes producing and selling unhygienic food — rendering such offences cognisable and non-bailable.

But not all is well: as with pet Nawaz League flourishes, the ordinance also hauls in special food courts to try cases on a summary basis. That’s the fourth set of special courts the Sharifs have sanctioned since 1997 (a majority have solved nothing). It may be best to keep food crimes within the realm of mainstream justice instead.

And for the longest time, the PFA’s been restricted to Lahore; kinks that need working out. In the wider picture, however, Ms Mumtaz has single-handedly shown us the bugs in our turmeric powder — to borrow directly from the page. And under her charge, the PFA has far outshone even its federal cousins.

Consider our other ‘authorities’: there’s Pemra for the media, busy banning birth control ads. A legal brawl over its boss’s appointment has ended up in the Islamabad High Court — as of this writing, it still has no full-time chairman.

Over on counterterror, there’s Nacta, the outfit considered vital to the National Action Plan. Whatever the tall tales of reform and rescue, it’s right where we left: with no money, no material, and no manpower.

Turn to the market, and we find the Competition Commission: after an all-out assault by big business, the monopoly-busting Commission is tied down in litigation of its own — each time it fines a cartel, Big Sugar, Big Cement & Co run to get stay orders from the courts. A verdict on the commission’s constitutionality is awaited with hope.

Which takes us to the hopeless Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). Where the PTA sees fit to ban YouTube, sectarian sites operate freely. But the PTA’s priorities have been pretty clear since 2011, when it published a list of words to censor from text messages, including “Budweiser”, “G-Unit”, “tongue”, “crack pipe”, “kumquat”, “lez be friends”, and “crotch monkey”.

It’s time the federation takes a leaf out of the PFA’s book — and that’s by appointing heads with fire in their eyes and autonomy in their work.

Engagement with the citizenry, too. On the PFA’s Facebook page, the people vent: they pray for the director’s health, they rage over being betrayed by Yasir Broast, and they tag friends to photos of the latest rodent raids.

Other times, they post poetry. Goes one comment, “Ab jaien tau kahan jaien, sab beneqaab ho gaye.” We have Ms Mumtaz to thank.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 22^nd,   2015.

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