November 11, 2003	Tuesday	Ramazan 15, 1424

ISLAMABAD, Nov 10: The government is again in a fix over the matter of ensuring clearance of sugar industry’s arrears to sugarcane growers and at the same time avoiding cartelization in the procurement process of 200,000 tons sugar by the Trading Corporation of Pakistan.

Sources in the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet told Dawn on Monday that neither the federal government nor the provinces had completed the homework on three major counts.

First, by whom and how much dues are to be paid to the growers. Second, what is the mill-wise stock position at respective sugar mills and how to ascertain the quantity of exportable stocks. Third, what is the criteria for the payment of dues to the growers.

Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz, Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan and Industries Minister Liaqat Ali Jatoi kept on discussing the sugar crisis in parliament house on Monday, these sources said.

It is in this background that another meeting has been convened at the federal level on Wednesday to review implementation of the prime minister’s directives and ECC decisions on procurement of 200,000 tons of sugar from the mills in two instalments and to ensure that crushing starts by November 15, said sources in the food ministry.

To be presided over by Industries Minister Liaqat Ali Khan Jatoi, the meeting would be attended by federal ministers for food and commerce, provincial food ministers, chief secretaries, and representatives of the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA).

The sources said the TCP would be in a difficult situation if a mill makes a bid to sell a larger quantity of sugar than its own stocks and if its dues to the growers are higher than its stocks being offered for sale.

And if the sugar mills do not have sufficient liquidity, how the payments would be ensured to the growers. These sources said the ECC should have fixed mill-wise targets to procure sugar and make payments to the growers so that maximum number of mills could start crushing by November 15.

These sources said the mills which were facing liquidity problems, would not be able to clear their dues to the growers and unable to start timely crushing. As such, generally the mills in Punjab would be the major beneficiary of the sugar purchase by the TCP because of their negligible arrears while those in Sindh and facing financial problems would remain under pressure for the next season as well and plunge into bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, an ECC spokesman referring to the story in Dawn on November 10, 2003 said the decision related to sugar was taken in the best interest of all stakeholders and particularly the growers.

He pointed out that no subsidy was proposed for sugar industry but a collective solution to help the stakeholders including growers, industry and consumers. The spokesman said the ECC encourages open discussion on all issues and members express their views freely to arrive at a final decision.