HYDERABAD (February 23 2004): The anti-corruption department raided the grain warehouse located at Pipri and Landhi and recovered 98,000 white bags, including 83,221 newly arrived Punjab wheat, which has exposed the corruption and mismanagement in the Sindh food department.

Advocate General in a case of Anwar Traders vs the provincial food department informed the Sindh High Court that a huge stock of government wheat has been stolen/misappropriated from the government grain houses and as such the food department would not able to supply wheat to the plaintiff, the highest bidder of the moth-eaten wheat.

According to inside sources, the estimated cost of the missing wheat at Karachi alone is around 200 million.

It is feared that if stock of other government grain warehouses, situated at various parts of the province, was reconciled the amount of misappropriated/missing wheat could be around 800 million.

Meanwhile, the committee, appointed by the provincial food secretary to probe into the wheat supply to non-operative flour mills, reported to have unearthed 12 flour mills in Karachi alone which were non-operative and which have been supplied the government subsidised wheat.

They marketed it in open market where prices were Rs200 higher than the official price and during the past three months have earned no less than 10 million rupees at the cost of provincial exchequers.

People expressed their reservations over the two-man committee of Tanveer Qureshi, EDO, Revenue and Ramesh Kumar, presently holding the charge of deputy director, Food, Sukkur region to examined the four-year record of Sukkur and Mirpurkhas region.

Rames Kumar's track record is not up to the mark except he enjoys the patronage of the food secretary. Provincial food secretary Mir Muhammad Padhiar, it seems, had succumbed to political pressure as he had posted number of inept and junior officer as regional head of the food department in flagrant violation of the government policy.

The posting of officers at Sukkur, Mirpurkhas, Karachi and Hyderabad could be quoted as an example.

At Hyderabad, a 17 grade junior officer, Allah Bachio Chandio, has been posted as deputy director. Senior assistant director Asad Balouch applied for a long leave in protest as he does not wish to work under a junior officer, but, instead of granting him leave, he was placed under suspension.

The favouritism has virtually reduce the efficiency of the food department which could be judged by the fact that it has failed to streamline the price structure of wheat flour in the province which is maintaining high profile in various parts of the province.

Courtesy Business Recorder