FFC assails rise in prices of ghee, cooking oil: Action urged against 10 flour mills
By Sher Baz Khan
ISLAMABAD, Feb 14: The Federal Food Committee (FFC) said on Thursday that the rise in prices of cooking oil and ghee was unjustified because almost half (48 per cent) of it was manufactured from local ingredients.
The committee took up the matter with the Ministry of Industries after the price went up to Rs130per kg from Rs60 over the past few months and produced a crisis-like situation.
The FFC has urged the Balochistan government to register FIRs against ten mills for supplying flour “unfit” for human consumption. The mills sifted too much superfine flour and fine flour while grinding the subsidised wheat supplied by the government and making huge profits by selling the two byproducts in the market in violation of laws and food standards.
The committee also asked the Balochistan government to stop supplying expired wheat to mills from its godowns. The committee warned the mills and Chakkis against grinding or marketing such wheat.
FFC chairman Let-Gen (retd) Farooq Ahmed Khan also said that prices of flour products, such as bakery items and sweets must be reduced because of the countrywide decline in flour price.
“Prices of bakery products and sweets which have sky-rocketed must now come down to the pre-crisis level,” Gen Farooq said.
He said local manufacturers should not be allowed to link their prices with the increase in palm oil prices in the international market as almost half of the ingredients used in manufacturing of ghee and oil were produced locally.
The committee has also sought a complete report on supplies of food items to Afghanistan through the transit trade and under the World Food Programme.
The FFC chairman said the committee did not intend to disturb food supplies to the neighbouring country, but it wanted to check whether real supplies exceeded the allowed quantity at a time when domestic consumers themselves needed relief.
The FFC has also taken notice of illegal storages of food items in Fata, which it suspects are being smuggled to Afghanistan. The committee has sought details of the population of different tribal regions and the quantity of food items being supplied to them on a weekly basis.
“We think that in many tribal areas the storage and supply of some food items exceed the requirement of the local population and that such food items are being smuggled outside the country,” Gen Farooq said.
The committee has directed the Trading Corporation of Pakistan to supply a balanced mix of white and red wheat to the provinces. The NWFP and Balochistan have complained that they are getting only red wheat.
The committee directed the NWFP government to take help of private truckers transporting imported wheat to the province from Karachi.
The FFC said the present 100pc increase in the price of rice is not justified because of the bumper crop of 5.5million tons this year. Local consumption is just around 2.2 million tons, but still there are shortages in the market.
The FFC has proposed an increase in the daily quota of rice (Irri) for the Utility Stores from 13,000 tons to 30,000 so that poor people could get rice at affordable rates.
The Food Ministry will present a report to the FFC on Friday on the damage caused by weather to the new gram crop. If the damage is large, the FFC may not propose export of gram from the government stocks.
