LAHORE, July 30: The Food Department would abolish temporary wheat procurement centre to save Rs2 billion spent on transportation and corruption in the process, Shahid Hasan, the secretary, told the ad hoc Public Accounts Committee here on Tuesday.

He was responding to an audit para about corruption in the transportation of wheat. The number of such centres, he said, had already been reduced in the last two years. More reduction was on the cards. Wheat would only be purchased at the permanent centres.

Dispelling the concern of the committee that this would create problems for farmers, the secretary said farmers sold sugarcane at the mills.

There was no reason why this should not be so in case of wheat. He said the grain would be procured at permanent centres and the millers would buy it from there.

The secretary’s opinion got support from another para about unauthorized payment of Rs9.1 million to watchmen came up. The committee told the department to get the payment regularized at the earliest.

The secretary lamented that public sector work was becoming increasingly difficult. Over regularization, he said, left no room for decision-making.

Quoting the example of polythene purchase for storing wheat worth Rs36 billion in the open, the secretary said, there was an urgency since the monsoon was approaching.

The technical officer, however, was reluctant to buy the polythene available because it did not match the specifications. To compound the problem, there was no plant in Pakistan that could provide polythene of the specified quality. He said he risked an audit objection in deciding to purchase the plastic anyhow.

The secretary was caught on the wrong foot when the PAC noted that no inquiry had been initiated yet in a case of fraud first pointed out in 1993. He assured early compliance.