KARACHI, March 4: The Pakistan Peoples Party on Saturday chided the announcement of the Economic Coordination Committee for holding investigation into profiteering by sugar mills after allegedly patronizing the sugar scam for full five months and termed it yet another cruel joke played with the people.

In a statement from Bilawal House, the Central Information Secretary of the PPP, Taj Haider, said if the government was really serious about nabbing criminals, it should look for them in its own ranks.

The law in Sindh made it mandatory upon sugar mills to start crushing cane by the 15th of October, he said, adding that it gave the Cane Commissioner the power to arrest a mill owner, who didn’t comply with the start of the crushing date, as also to take over his mill.

The investigation, if any, should start by getting hold of those in the government who were part of the conspiracy to fleece people and those, who chose to ignore the law and facilitated the interminably long delays in starting the mills.

The military government’s long standing economic policy of converting manufacturers into importers had come into full play in the present sugar scam. Besides other disasters, this policy has also resulted in a yawning trade gap that threatens to almost equal our total exports of commodities this year, Haider said.

It were the sugar mills, who in full view of the authorities and with heavy financing from banks and brokers, were themselves importing sugar from as far as Brazil during the cane crushing season and hoarding it.

The government provided a timely shot in the arm enabling the hoarders to multiply their profits by purchasing 300,000 tons of sugar at $380 per ton, when the rates in the international market were hovering around $250 per ton.

This was the master stroke played by the concerned ministry, which sky-rocketed the domestic and international prices of sugar almost on an hourly basis, he said.

The adverse impacts on the national agriculture resulting from drop in sucrose content and drying up of sugarcane standing in the fields, the delay in sowing the Rabi crop, the needless waste of Rabi waters allocated for sowing wheat for keeping the sugarcane in tact, would be far reaching.

Sugarcane is fetching a good price these days, but everyone knows that it is the middleman who is pocketing huge profits. The growers have not been able to even recover their costs.

“Why couldn’t the government announce a price for sugarcane in August/September, which would have been much lower than its present price but higher than what the growers were demanding at that time?” he asked.

Taj Haider pointed out that the so-called investigation was being carried out by those who had themselves committed the crime of fleecing the people.

“It is nothing but an eyewash to cool down public protests and to protect the real patrons of the sugar scam,” he remarked.

He demanded an enquiry by a committee comprising persons of known integrity.