ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Wednesday expressed resentment over reports of non-availability of food items and their poor quality at the state-run utility stores.

Informed sources said that while presiding over a meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet, the finance minister sought an explanation from the secretary of industries and production and the managing director of the Utility Stores Corporation (USC) regarding poor quality of products at the utility stores.

It was reported that various pulses being sold at USC outlets in Karachi were of poor quality.

The USC MD clarified that all stores had sufficient stocks and there was no compromise on quality of products at its stores. He said the sale of products in Ramazan has been at its peak as people have fully availed the opportunity to purchase subsidised products offered by the USC.

This did not satisfy the minister. He asked: “Why did then reports of substandard pulses appear in media?”

The USC chief claimed that swift steps were taken to ascertain media reports and a special team was dispatched which sent the specimens to the laboratory for quality check.

He said the laboratory tests were available with the USC which proved that media reports were baseless and there was no quality issue with pulses.

These remarks annoyed the finance minister. He stated that when the USC and the industries ministry had reliable evidence, why they held it up for almost two weeks, and why they did not inform the people about the test results?

He directed the secretary of industries to verify facts presented by the USC and report it for information to the public.

The ECC approved a summary presented by the Aviation Division for extension in debt repayment period of the PIAC sukuk certificates of Rs6.80bn by five years with repayment at maturity.

The ECC also approved sale of lint cotton procured by the Trading Corporation of Pakistan during 2014-15. The TCP will sell out the cotton stocks through national and international competitive bidding process after fixing a reserve price, and bids below the reserve price will not be accepted, the ECC directed.

On a proposal moved by Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources, the ECC directed the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) to develop a comprehensive recovery mechanism of regulatory duty imposed before budget 2015-16 on crude oil and petroleum products based on the principle that there should be no loss or gain to oil-marketing companies and refineries due to imposition of subject regulatory duties.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2015

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