THE Shehbaz Sharif government is in a sort of Catch-22 situation regarding the alleged wheat import scandal. It is conducting an official inquiry into the large and reckless wheat imports allowed by the caretaker administration of Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, but is reluctant to look too deep into the scandal in case it is compelled to take action against those who were ruling at the time. However, not everyone within the ruling PML-N agrees with this strategy of the government in Islamabad. A report in this paper last week suggested that PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif wants the federal government to take action against everyone involved in the scandal, without regard for their ‘political clout’, and to refer the matter to NAB or the FIA for investigation to fix responsibility. The reason is obvious: the PML-N leader does not want the debris of the scandal to collapse on his party’s government in Punjab, which is being targeted by farmers for failing to commence official grain purchases in spite of the commodity’s plunging price in the market amid a record harvest.

With the farmers all set to launch a province-wise protest campaign against delays in wheat procurement and the commodity’s plummeting prices on Friday, it is important for the prime minister to broaden the scope of the ongoing inquiry even if he does not wish to involve any anti-corruption agency. A thorough inquiry is vital because the reluctance to dig deeper into the issue is creating suspicions that the decision to allow heavy grain imports was driven by corrupt motives. Thus, it is crucial for the committee probing the issue to determine if the decision to allow imports was based on economic reasons or incompetence or some other factor, and fix responsibility. If nothing else, the decision has caused an outflow of more than a billion dollars at a time when this cash-strapped country needs to save every single dollar. Indeed, it is not an easy place for the government that is trying to tread this road very carefully. But now that it has started the probe, it has no option but to finish the job in an impartial and transparent manner. If the caretakers have nothing to hide, the government should not be worried about upsetting anyone. Alternatively, it should be prepared to bear the political fallout of the scandal.

Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2024