Give us this day our daily bread

 

 

As if the brutal murder of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairperson Benazir Bhutto was not enough, the impoverished people of Pakistan are facing the worst wheat-flour crisis in the 60 years of its chequered history. They seem to have become victims of a big government-sponsored scam.

Thousands of people, including women, stand in long queues in front of utility stores to buy flour that has been in short supply for weeks due to hoarding, smuggling and a myopic export policy pursued at the highest level. Babies sleep by the roadside while their mothers stand in queue for hours for a few kilos of flour.

?The severe crisis blew up because the Pakistan government falsely portrayed a rosy picture of the yield that prompted traders to export wheat in a big way. Apparently, a certain lobby was patronised by the top officials. “Basically, it is mismanagement. The government miscalculated the size of the crop and announced that there would be surplus wheat. On the basis of this information, the government allowed the export of wheat. When it was discovered that the crop would not be in surplus, signals went out to the market that there would be a shortage,” said Kaiser Bengali, Pakistan’s leading independent economist.

Sadly enough, wheat was exported at the rate of $200 per tonne and the same commodity is now being imported at the rate of $511 per tonne, implying immense losses to the exchequer.

Taking advantage of the situation, wholesalers held back the wheat stock which led to the price hike. The government also delayed opening the letters of credit for wheat and it was imported in two instalments with the result that the perception of a shortage was not dispelled and prices continued to rise “The announcement of surplus crop was malafide because a crop estimate is made after the winter rains and in 2007 they made the announcement before winter because they wanted to provide an opportunity to a certain lobby,” said Bengali.

Wheat is the staple food in Pakistan. It is consumed by the majority; the frugal diet of a whopping 30% of the population that is condemned to live below the poverty line eats only roti with onions and chillies on a daily basis. Food inflation has hit the common man and the middle classes badly and they are barely managing to survive.

The situation became so bad that there were riots in several cities due to short supply of flour. A top exporter, who requested not to be named, said a greater crisis is in the offing because of late sowing of wheat and the hike in the prices of fertilisers due to which, farmers could not afford to administer dia-ammonium phosphate (DAP), an essential fertiliser in input farming, to the crops. He said DAP prices have shot up from Rs 1000 to Rs 1800 per bag. He also mentioned that several factors have paved the way for the crisis, including smuggling, non-human consumption and lack of appropriate data on human consumption in the country. “There is lack of governance and poor handling. It is a sophisticated trade which needs to be handled carefully,” he said.

Iqbal Dawood, Chairman, Pakistan Flour Mills Association said the crisis had been brewing ever since the government made wrong estimates about the crop size and allowed exports. The crisis deepened due to unabated smuggling to Afghanistan, he added. But he was optimistic that the situation would improve soon since grinding quantity has been increased.

However, despite his optimism, the situation is so precarious that paramilitary troops have begun escorting trucks carrying wheat to stop supplies from being stolen amid acute shortage of flour.

“It seemed there could be something wrong along the chain from warehouses to mills and then to distribution points,” Lt Gen. (retired) Farooq Ahmed Khan; chief of the National Disaster Management Authority was reported to have said on Sunday.