KARACHI, Aug 5: Flour millers have asked Sindh chief minister to set up a committee to supervise the delivery of 69,000 tons old wheat stocks being auctioned by Sindh Food Department.

“The Flour Millers Association has sent a letter to the chief minister requesting him to set up a three-member committee for this purpose,” former chairman of the association Akhtar Husain told Dawn. “We have suggested that the committee should comprise three members, an official of the Food Department a member of our association and an officer of the Provincial Ombudsman Office.”

He said the proposed committee should supervise the delivery of 69,000 tons of old wheat stock which is being auctioned by the Food Department. The department has already received bids for 69,000 tons of old wheat and a high-level committee comprising provincial secretaries of the departments of Food, Finance, Industry and Law are due to finalize the deal. Akhtar Husain and other flour millers reached by Dawn said the setting up of the proposed committee was necessary to ensure that good quality wheat of the current crop is not supplied to those who win the tenders for disposal of old wheat stock.

Akhtar Husain said the department had already caused a heavy financial loss to the provincial government by keeping 69,000 tons of 1999-2000 wheat stocks for too long a time that left them deteriorated and infested. “We had asked the department back in September 2000 to supply wheat from these stocks to the flour millers over and above their monthly quotas at a higher rate,” Akhtar Hussain recalled. Had the department done this it would have earned the department an additional income of Rs540 million. The flour millers were ready to pay Rs8,750 per ton for additional wheat supply in September 2000 against the then official price of Rs8500 per ton (including the price of gunny bags or bardana as called by the millers).

Flour millers say now the disposal of the old wheat stock at a throwaway price would cause the department an estimated loss of Rs750 million including the cost of the wheat plus godowns rents and other expenses incurred on their storage and transportation. They have based this estimate on the assumption that 69,000 tons of old wheat would fetch a maximum price of Rs5710 per ton—the highest bid received through the tenders floated by the Food Department. But an official of the department rejected this “as too high an estimate” but he frankly admitted that the disposal of old wheat stock through tenders would cause “some loss.” The official who declined to be identified said the wheat being auctioned has generated interest among those who want to use it in preparation of poultry feed. “So it is less likely for them to revise their bids upwards,” he said.

Akhtar Hussain said the Flour Mills Association has asked the chief minister to initiate an inquiry by a high level committee headed by a High Court judge to track down those responsible for incurring this huge loss to the government.

Dawn made several attempts to contact Sindh Food Minister Arif Mustafa Jatoi to learn further about this issue but he was not available for his comments. Sources close to Food Department say the department has huge stocks of not only 1999-2000 crops but of later crops as well. They say Minister Jatoi is determined to ensure that those old wheat stocks that have deteriorated over time and became infested with germs are disposed off as quickly as possible to save the department from booking further losses.