THE holy month of Ramazan was conspicuous for accelerating the rate of inflation, particularly food inflation in the country. In fact, the inflation rate was the highest in this month during the last five years.

Islamabad had a taste of that when its residents had to buy tomatoes at Rs140 per kilo. Wheat at many places was sold for Rs16,000 per tonne, a new record. That is without adding the expenses of turning the wheat into flour which varied from place to place, sometimes exorbitantly.

Since it was a pre-election Ramazan and the ruling coalition was anxious to do a great deal to win over the electorate, it was hoped that adequate and effective measures will be taken to keep the prices down, particularly those which rise in spite of the official controls. The government, it seemed, was not ready to exert enough. It was one thing for the government to decide, plan and promise and quite another to deliver what has been promised. The gap between the promise and the performance continues to be very wide. But the people judge the government’s attitude by what is actually delivered and this was far less.

This year the government had the advantage of a bumper wheat crop of 22.5 million tonnes. Although the move to export part of the surplus to India was shot down, still the government could not hold down the prices because of excessive hoarding and profiteering. In an election year, the National Assembly was expected to play a major role in the economic sector particularly in combating inflation.

The food inflation in Pakistan is now admitted to be higher than what it is in other South Asian countries. Despite surplus wheat crop, it is deplorable that the government failed to overcome the wheat crisis and the National Assembly was not interested in protesting against inflation as part of its swan song.

Following people’s protests and clamour, the Supreme Court did intervene but it didn’t know how to go about it in a highly tricky area. It called on the government to launch a crackdown on the hoarders of wheat and other food stuff and raid the large farm houses where wheat was being hoarded. Some action was taken in this regard, some raids were conducted and some persons detained, but these actions were not enough to produce the desired result.

A raid on some wheat storages resulted in uncovering 35,000 tonnes of wheat . However there was a bitter argument between the federal ministers and the Punjab government with regard to the origin of the crisis. Federal commerce minister Humayun Akhtar accused the Punjab government of not tracing and busting the large-scale hoardings and letting its favourites thrive for that. The provincial government, in turn, accused the federal government of showing more interest in exporting wheat and permitting smuggling of wheat to India, Central Asia and Afghanistan. The controversy died down after a short while and there was hardly a group in an election year interested in lowering the prices and caring for broad consumer interests.

Above all, the labour unions which are the watchdog of labour interests, particularly of wages and prices, have seldom been conspicuous for waging any battle against prices. Instead, they had always agitated for higher wages for workers.

In Europe or Britain, labour unions ultimately become labour parties or socialist parties and try to take over the administration by electoral means as is the case in Britain. But Pakistan’s labour unions have played a very limited role. So, others could not be blamed much when those representing the consumers in the country do not want to play an active role in achieving better conditions for them. What is obvious is that the consumers have no strong group to support them.

A Consumer Council has been setup by the governor in Karachi after a long time but it has not been asserting itself, upholding the rights of the consumers and protecting their interests.

But the consumers cannot be blamed altogether for their poor role. The consumers realise that they live in a high-profit country where importers, industrialists, wholesaler, middlemen and retailers believe in high profits. The retailer profit is as good as 200 per cent or more.

Consumers also find that, unlike in the West, they have no alternative to the high priced commodities. The moment the people prefer an alternative item, their prices shoot up or they become adulterated such as medicines.

When wheat becomes expensive, rice is more expensive and when beef and mutton become expensive, chicken also becomes more expensive. So, the consumer does not have an alternative of choosing a less-priced item.

And now, after promising Cash and Carry kind of stores for the middle class, the government is encouraging more and more Makro stores for wholesale buyers which do not help the middle income group.

The World Bank’s new development report is on agriculture which means far more will be done by it to help agriculture in countries like Pakistan, to reduce the 600 million farm poor. The annual report notes that China, India and Morocco have reduced their rural poverty through an agricultural growth of seven per cent. Other agricultural countries could do the same so that absolute poverty is reduced by a half to meet the UN’s millennium goals. At the same time it has been reported that banks in Sindh , Balochistan and the frontier province are reluctant to give farm loans because of poor returns. This trend should be reversed and more farm loans should be available in these areas.

Sixty per cent of the people of Pakistan still live in agricultural areas and unless their problems are solved poverty cannot be reduced and since the industrial jobs cannot be increased rapidly, the farms and agro industries should provide the workers more jobs.

Meanwhile, high inflation acts as a deterrent to poverty reduction. When low wages combine with high inflation the results can be disastrous. But the consumers have to wake up and assert themselves so that they do not get a raw deal in spite of their best efforts.