LAHORE, Aug 29: Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) on Thursday took on Privatization Minister Saleem M. Altaf, who recently accused the body of mismanagement and trying to pass it on to the government by demanding subsidy on export.

“Ironically, the minister has realized the mistakes of PSMA only after joining the government but he failed to point out or correct these problems when he was president of the body,” said a spokesman of the association.

The minister has irked the industry through his recent remarks that PSMA should not expect any rebate on exports when most of its problems stem from its own inefficiency.

“Government’s duty is not limited to safeguarding one player but all three: producer, consumers and growers,” he said and lamented that the minister statement, when taken in this context, seems to be saving no one. The government is yet to launch an inquiry into allowing free import of sugar and make the country a dumping ground for other countries.

This has created a glut in the market and now the government was not ready to let the industry export the sugar at its own cost. The government was only required to collect money from the millers at a fixed rate and subsidize export.

The minister’s remarks that industry should hold buffer stocks for the government also does not fit the bill; the government should itself buy and stock sugar for emergency. This is tantamount to putting industry under the double jeopardy. The minister would do better to suggest policies for guiding the industry out of crisis rather than laying the blames at the wrong doors.

Meanwhile, a spokesman of the Chamber of Agriculture Punjab also berated the remarks made by the privatization minister maintaining: “The days of subsidies are over and the PSMA should put its own house in order.” The government is subsidizing export of wheat and cotton. What stops it from subsidizing export of sugar especially when the whole crisis is of its own creating, he asked. The industry has been held hostage to surplus sugar which was allowed to come duty-free. Now, when the crisis has hit the roof, the minister has chosen to lecture the industry about the harms of subsidy, he added.