Islamabad:
The designation of the recent sugar price increase an “sugar scandal”, grilled public accounts committee (PAC) President of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and the secretary of national food security over sugar exports, imports and changes in tasks.
During the meeting, chairman of Junaid Akbar Khan, PAC members raised serious questions about the government’s handling of the sugar trading policy. Chairman Khan criticized FBR’s inconsistency and said, “When it comes to public difficulty, FBR IMF. But when it relates to investors, they don’t even bother to follow the IMF directives.” He added that certain investors appear to receive unnecessary benefits.
PAC member Khawaja Shiraz asked under which mechanism 750,000 tonnes of sugar was exported. In response, FBR chairman Rashid Langrial said that such decisions are made by the cabinet based on the Ministry of Food’s recommendations. He added that FBR merely implemented the Cabinet Directive to abolish the 20% duty to the sugar import and to reduce VAT from 18% to 0.25%. The separation tax was also lowered from 5.5% to 0.25%, he said.
PAC member Naveed Qamar asked why the government had failed to regulate sugar prices and questioned the role of the Competition Commission in the control of alleged cartelization. “Who let the sugar cartels take over the market?” He asked.
Moin Amir Pirzada noted that neither Murad Ali Shah in Sindh nor Maryam Nawaz in Punjab seemed to have authority to trade against sugar factories. He suggested that Sugar Mill licenses be liberalized so that anyone could create a mill and break the monopolies.
When asked about representation in the Sugar Advisory Board, the food secretary confirmed that although all stakeholders were represented, there was no consumer representation. Pirzada criticized the omission and asked how a board of directors could be considered representative if the excluded consumers are most affected by price increases.
