KARACHI, Feb 12: A vigilance cell of the Anti-Corruption Establishment has raided three godowns of the Sindh food department and found that 271,115 bags of wheat, worth Rs82 million, were missing, officials said on Thursday.

The vigilance cell checked the record of three godowns in the city - Pipri Food Godown near Steel Town, Landhi Food Godown No 2, and Landhi Food Godown No 3 - and found that thousands of bags were missing, Mohammad Ali Baloch, assistant director of the cell, ACE, told Dawn.

He said: "We have just found the bags missing and started investigating. No arrest has so far been made as we are still investigating the involvement of officials".

According to the record of Pipri Food Godown, 2,077,038 bags were received from Sindh and 3,616,671 bags from Punjab from 1994 to 2002. The record also showed a shortage of 94,066 bags between the provinces' receipts and issuance to floor mills.

Similarly, a shortage of 175,049 bags between receipts and issuance was found at Landhi Godown No 2, and a shortage of 2,000 bags at Landhi Godown No 3. Mr Baloch said the shortage in wheat was a loss to the exchequer. "Further investigation is in progress which may lead to more detections of theft," he added.

He said the chairman of enquiries and anti-corruption, Brig Mukhtar Ahmed had issued directives to carry out further raids to find out the misappropriation in wheat godowns, if any, in the province.

He said Inspector Tariq Islam under his supervision checked the records only and physical checking was yet to be carried out. He said the pilferage of thousands of bags were found in Karachi only. "Under the chairman's directives, we are planning to raid more godowns in Hyderabad, Kotri, Sukkur and Larkana, where we expect more misappropriation to be found."

Sources in the Sindh government said a wheat crisis was created as the officials in the food department had allegedly misappropriated wheat bags and sold them out at throwaway prices in the market. They said if a thorough checkup was conducted, wheat worth millions of rupees would be found missing from the government-owned godowns across the province.

"Had they not sold the stored wheat and had the pilferage been contained, no wheat crisis could have been created in the province," an official on condition of anonymity said.

The beginning of the wheat crisis was supposed to have taken place when Sindh government had announced the auction of 69,000 tons of 'sub-standard' wheat at a throwaway price of Rs6,370 a ton to a trader from Ghotki, the home town of the Sindh chief minister. The rate was lesser than that of the government's fixed rate of Rs8,500 a ton.

The government, after the receipt of the reports of missing wheat bags, retracted its decision to auction the wheat as it had reportedly run short of the quantity being auctioned. The trader went to the High Court where he got the verdict in his favour, the sources said.

The government had to sell wheat to the trader of Ghotki at Rs6,370 while market rate ranged between Rs9,500 to Rs10,000 a ton. The government had to suffer millions of rupees in losses but the officials responsible were not held accountable. The food department had not initiated any inquiry to look into the episode.