ISLAMABAD– The federal government Wednesday said the evidence collected by the Inquiry Commission clearly showed sugar mill owners in Pakistan booked Rs300 billion in profit in one year, which came from the pockets of farmers and taxpayers, the government said Wednesday.
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar gave a second press conference on the inquiry’s findings. The profit the mills made, he said, came from export subsidies and katoti or underpaying farmers.
The PM’s assistant said all sugar mill owners procured sugarcane at Rs140 per 40kg as opposed to the support or official price of Rs180. By underpaying farmers, sugar mills saved Rs40 on every 40kg. Similarly, they inflated the cost of production to claim a subsidy on exports, which was financed by taxpayers.
In the press conference, Akbar mainly talked about the Rs26.6 billion worth of export subsidies given by the former PML-N government’s Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. But he barely touched upon the Rs2.4 billion subsidy or the sugar crisis, which occurred during his own government under the PTI, and which became the basis of the entire inquiry.
He did share details of the Rs4.12 billion subsidy given by the Sindh government (PPP) and that it was designed to benefit the Omni Group, which alone availed more than a quarter of that pie.
