ISLAMABAD, Aug 8: The Supreme Court hearings on price hike in the country, beginning on Thursday, may reveal a sugar scam as big as the one on the Pakistan Steel Mills.“The big rise in sugar price in a short time last year and the sudden closure of probe into the issue by the National Accountability Bureau can lead to some startling disclosures,” a top bureaucrat told Dawn on Wednesday.
Last year, the retail price of sugar reached Rs42 per kilogramme – the highest ever in the country – because of the absence of any form of price control and the hoarding of sugar and mass profiteering by some people.
Federal secretaries for finance, industries, commerce and agriculture will appear before a Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and Justice M. Javed Buttar to explain government’s steps for controlling prices of commodities, particularly sugar.
The Supreme Court has also directed the NAB prosecutor general to inform the court about the outcome of its preliminary investigation into last year’s multi-billion sugar scandal.
Earlier, a Supreme Court bench, in a suo motu case hearing held in July, had summoned the officials. People’s Party Parliamentarians Senator Enver Baig had appealed to the bench to summon the secretaries of the four ministries, which directly or indirectly controlled prices.
The four secretaries were also members of a committee constituted by the prime minister to review sugar prices and negotiate with mill owners issues related to the industry.
Statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Statistics reveals that prices of essential commodities witnessed an upward trend during the last few years. The prices of commodities, including edible oil, pulses and sugar, are steadily increasing.
The government had constituted a committee headed by adviser to prime minister on finance Dr Salman Shah which had held meetings to review the price situation and recommended measures for controlling the prices, a government official told Dawn. However, he said, the committee remained ineffective in controlling the prices.
Another committee was constituted very recently, which was headed by the minister for industries, to keep an eye on prices of essential commodities.
Prices of other commodities may go up as a result of seasonal factors or disruption in supply, but it is believed that the sugar price hike was engineered by some influential people in the sitting government, earning them billions of rupees benefits at the cost of consumers.On a suo motu, the Supreme Court had taken up complaints of increase in the prices of daily use items in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.