We know how to procure wheat and at what rates and when to release so that flour prices in the market remain stable – Sindh Chief Minister
Karachi: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that the federal government, being inexperienced and naïve, had created shortage of wheat last year by releasing it just after its harvest in March and then imported at higher rates and now they were repeating the same episode.
“We know how to procure wheat and at what rates and when to release so that flour prices in the market remain stable,” he said while talking to the media after offering condolence over the death of comedian Umar Sharif at his residence on Saturday.
To a question, the chief minister said that last year the PTI government had released wheat just after its harvest in March. “When wheat is harvested its stocks circulate in the market in abundance at a reasonable rate and when the stocks start dwindling the governments begin to release wheat to control the prices,” he said and added the wheat was harvested in the country in March and were released in October every year.
Shah said that the PTI government again released wheat in Punjab and in its other provinces just after harvesting the new crops, therefore wheat stocks disappeared from the market and prices started going up. “Surprisingly, they kept us pressing for releasing the wheat to the millers but we had refused and now in October we would start releasing the wheat and our stocks were enough to meet our requirement till the arrival of new crop in March 2022,” he said and added the federal government was not ready to give Rs.5000 per bag price to the local growers but now they were importing the wheat at a price of Rs.6600 per bag.
The CM said that the flour prices were lower in Sindh than the Punjab but let the PTI people say whatever they felt fit. “What is their performance,” he questioned and then replied ‘they [PTI govt.] have unleashed a Tsunami of price hike, unrest, and uncertainty by pursuing defective, unrealistic, and unworkable policies,” he said and added therefore the country has bogged down in the worst economic and political crisis.
Shah said that the PTI has no capability to run the country, but it was the PPP which has the strength, knowhow and political wisdom to steer the country out of on-going crisis.
Talking about NCOC’s decisions, Murad Ali Shah said that his government had been implementing their decisions but “we have taken important decisions keeping in view the ground situation of the COVID-19,” he said.
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Sindh Courier
