November 01, 2006	Wednesday	Shawwal 8, 1427

ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has observed that the inability of the agriculture ministry to make the sugar mills start crushing in October not only incur heavy financial losses on poor farmers every season but has also pushed Pakistan well behind India in per acre yield of wheat.

The committee has maintained that the federal ministry of food, agriculture and livestock (Minfal) has been hijacked by influential sugar millers over the past 15-20 years as every year they delay the crushing season from the first week of October till December on various pretexts.

Because, the sucrose level in sugarcane increases with each passing day after October if they remain standing in the fields that’s why the millers delay crushing as late as possible.

This year as well, Minfal is unable to make the millers meet the crushing deadline of the first week of November, which was given to them for the second time, the committee remarked.

To this uncontrolled scenario, the sowing of wheat in the sugarcane fields due to delayed crushing seldom takes place in early November which badly affect the per acre growth yield of wheat.

A sub-committee of the PAC here on Tuesday also directed Minfal to confiscate and auction the property of former chairman of Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) Ch Mohammad Anwar who has fled abroad after allegedly committing millions of rupees irregularities and embezzlements in funds.

The committee has directed that money be deposited in the national exchequer. The PARC chairman is facing multiple cases of embezzlement. Prominent among them is the vanishing of two full ships of fertilisers from Port Qasim during the second tenure of prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Audit pointed out that the ex-chairman of PARC irregularly drew pay and allowances of BPS-22 while he was posted in BPS-21. On another occasion, he was paid Rs689,646 as arrears of pay and allowances and self-hired house for the period while he was posted in the Agriculture Development Bank of Pakistan (ADBP).

The committee was informed that the ex-chairman had been convicted in absentia for three years by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and was still at large. Efforts were also underway to recover the outstanding amount from him.

“Minfal has not only failed to play its role in the development of agriculture and protection of the interests of the poor farmers, but its progress is almost nil as far as development of seed varieties and quality of research by the PARC are concerned,” said MNA Riaz Fatiyana, the convener of the sub-committee.

He said there was a time when Pakistan was called an influential agricultural country but it was no more.

Minfal Secretary Ismael Qureshi was unable to challenge the remarks of Mr Fatiyana when he said that though the Minfal’s role was almost non-existent in agricultural development, it still took huge funds from various international financial institutions for obsolete projects and for things which never existed on the ground.

Mr Fatiyana said the ministry recently took $200m loan from the World Bank for a salinity related project despite the fact that there was at present no evidence of salinity anywhere in the country.

The committee also ordered investigations into the doubtful payment of Rs1.103m to farmers by Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) as delivery charges on procurement of paddy in 1992-93. It feared that the money had gone to the pockets of the middlemen or Passco’s employees instead of farmers.

The audit committee was of the view that the then managing director of Passco was not authorised to increase Rs5 per 40-kg in the support price of paddy set by the government. Besides, the price was increased at time when the middlemen had procured paddy from farmers a month ago.

“When the crop was no more in the fields then why there was an increase in support prices? For the middlemen or for Passco’s own employees,” Mr Fatiyana observed.

While discussing an audit para, the committee was informed that Passco supplied 12,968.7 tons wheat to Punjab Agriculture Development and Supplies Corporation (PAD&SC) for use as seed in the flood affected area in the province during Oct 1992.

But, the wheat could not be sold as seed by PAD&SC and was lifted back by Passco during May 1993-March 1994. Thus, Passco sustained losses of Rs9.74m on account of shortage of wheat, processing loss, bardana (sacks) replacement, labour, transportation and other charges.

The committee also directed to the MD Passco to appear before it in the next meeting. The committee was also informed about the Rs1.37m losses due to the sale of black gram at lesser rates and in excess of tendered quantity by Passco.

The audit said it had yet to get any reply from Passco despite the fact that the irregularities was brought into its notice in August 1996.