ISLAMABAD, June 26: The Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) is facing pressures from some official and unofficial quarters to give up investigations against cement, wheat, sugar and other cartels allegedly involved in manipulative and restrictive trade practices.

Sources told Dawn on Thursday that the CCP’s inquiries and its decisions against banks, cement and fertiliser companies involved in cartelisation were creating more and more problems for the CCP, including the non-implementation of the competition law. This has, particularly resulted in government’s continued refusal to allocate any budget for the CCP.

Also, the sources said, the government was not allowing the commission to secure “tied sourcing” of funding to run its day-to-day financial affairs. The issue has compounded as the government has not even confirmed the salary structure of the members of the commission.

The ministry of finance has been approached to settle financial issues of the commission, which are pending for last two years. The PML-Q and caretaker governments kept pending the issue and now the PPP-led coalition government was also delaying it reportedly at the behest of the cartels.

The sources said that the ministry of industries and production had written a letter to the officials of the president and prime minister’s secretariats urging them to “stop” the commission from taking action against the cartels involved in increasing prices and thus fleecing consumers.

Vested interest, the sources said, is attacking the commission in the media and does not want it to continue its job - a demand that had been rejected by its chairman Khalid Mirza. He has told the higher authorities that as long as he was the head of the organisation he would continue chasing illicit cartels, which were making the lives of the citizen miserable by increasing their prices every now and then and that, too, without any justification.

The ministries of finance and industries, the sources said, were told that Turkey had recently taken action against 17 steel mills involved in manipulation but no hue and cry was made by anybody there.

The sources said that the CPP was “independent” perhaps only in papers but the fact of the matter was that ever since it was converted into commission from the defunct Monopoly Control Authority (MCA), it was facing pressures to avoid taking action against cartels.

The World Bank, which had provided about $2 million funding to the commission for its capacity building, was also being criticised by some ministries.

The ministry of finance was informed that the commissions, which were recently established in various countries, particularly in China, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, were performing their duties satisfactorily to restrict the activities of the cartels and their citizens were appreciating the move.

The role of the commission in Pakistan is being appreciated by the international financial institutions, who wanted fair business practices by eliminating cartels and providing level-playing field to all, the sources said.