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Old Sunday, August 24, 2008
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Default Corruption and inefficiency

Corruption and inefficiency
By Dr Ijaz Ahsan

I have just read that Chief Minister has ordered a crackdown on hoarders of wheat. As a farmer who grows wheat, I would like to Mr CM that the primary responsibility for the wheat crisis rests not with hoarders. They are certainly a part of the problem. However, the most important cause of the wheat shortage in the country has to do with inefficiency and corruption in different government departments, as I shall now explain. Some time ago I decided to sell my wheat to the government - to PASSCO in fact - and I shall never forget what I went through. If one takes a few hundred maunds of wheat to the grain market, they fill it into bags, weigh it, and within an hour or two, hand you the cash and send you home. But dealing with the concerned government officials was an extended nightmare.

I was told to take the following actions, at almost every one of which I had to grease palms: Firstly, provide proof of ownership of land. Secondly, apply for permission to sell to them the precise quantity of wheat I desired to dispose of. Thirdly, buy from them empty bags, whose price would be refunded to me after they had received my wheat. Fourthly, take my wheat to Minichinabad Centre, forty kilometres away, rather than Bahawalnagar, which was close to my land. Fifthly, open an account at a bank in Minchinabad. Sixthly, deliver my wheat to them and receive a chit. Seventhly, come all the way to the Minchinabad Centre once again and receive a pay order in payment. Now I ask Chief Minister: why would a person sell to PASSCO unless he was out of his mind? The result, over the years, has been that the government departments fail to procure enough wheat. And new another sad story starts.

Punjab produces 85 percent of the country's wheat. It, therefore, has the responsibility of keeping adequate reserve of this staple food. Because of the incompetence and corruption of the procuring departments, not enough reserves are built up. On the other hand, because of incompetence and corruption in the department meant to prevent smuggling, hundreds of thousands of tons is smuggled to Afghanistan from NWFP, creating food shortage in that province. When Punjab fails to give them more and more wheat because its reserves are insufficient, then the ministers of the NWFP government hold out threats that they will come to Punjab, lift wheat by force, and will see who can prevent them. Please note how corruption and inefficiency in government departments leads to strained relations between provinces, destroying national integration and cohesion.

This year the situation has reached such a nadir that for the first time in my life, the police has been raiding farmers' residences to snatch wheat. These people are not hoarders. The small farmers always have to sell all their wheat at once. The somewhat bigger farmers sell some, and keep some, in order to sell it later at a better price. No government department in the past has been raiding farmers' residences, certainly not within a couple of months of the wheat harvest having come in. This shows the horrendous stage that has been reached due to the incompetence and corruption in the departments.

Another important reason for the wheat shortage is the failure of the Planned Parenthood department to check the increasingly rapid growth of our population. In 1947, the population of the Pakistan was not more than 3 crores. In the last sixty years, this has been allowed to increase to sixteen crores. The bellies of the five times greater number of people on the same area of land are a bottomless pit, which is impossible to fill. The people believe our religion forbids family planning, and hence shy away from it. Faced with such a situation, the Bangladeshis sent their biggest religious leaders abroad to attend international conferences on family planning. There they discovered that not only the Bangladesh government, but other governments were also worried about the rate at which the population was increasing in their countries. When the religious leaders returned to Bangladesh, they stopped opposing family planning programmes, and advised their followers in the villages and towns to do likewise. This helped immensely, and therefore the population of Bangladesh has been controlled.

Dear Mr CM, you are occupying a very high post in the government. Kindly try to have our top maulanas also sent to Planned Parenthood conferences. You wil1 be pleasantly surprised by the results. Further, force the wheat procurement agencies to put their act together or else face the axe. God bless you.

The writer is a former principal of King Edward Medical College, and president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan.
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Last edited by Princess Royal; Sunday, August 24, 2008 at 06:52 PM.
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Old Friday, January 15, 2021
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I am obliged to reply you to make you understand how things work.

First of all there is a overlapping between PASSCO and Provincial Food Departments function and in order to avoid any conflicts, the centers and areas are distributed between them far from each others. So, there is a dearth of the center I agree. Basically a center is established for surrounding area not for people so much away from it. 40 KM is with in the range mostly people are not much disturbed by it if there is more price difference.

Secondly, You might have assumed all the things go smooth, that not the government style unfortunately.

Land record etc are demanded in order to ensure that seller is not the agent rather genuine farmer. Furthermore, there is not any charges for gunny bags rather its a security deposit that is in place just to ensure that nobody can get away with governments/corporations property that is gunny bags. People get bags they are costly and sell them into local market or stole them. so the security deposit mechanism is in place to check malpractices by public.

Thirdly, there is no such approval letter for selling the wheat. Its not in the wheat procurement policy of PASSCO. Fourthly, In order to avoid corruption by PASSCO staff payments are not made in cash rather through banking transactions there are many other risks are also involved. A single center purchase wheat worth of Million rupees so there are security threats as well so in order to ensure the safety of staff, avoid corruption and reduce the chances of money laundering, the transactions are made through banking channels so one could easily trace the money trail.

That is why one have to visit center atleast twice or thrice if they have fulfilled all the documentations and requirements. once you wheat is received at the center you will get your bill mostly within two days. Bills must have to be countersigned and verified by Project Incharge in order to avoid any corruptions and mistakes.

I agree that there are a few centers, the numbers should be increased, there might have been some instances of corruption by staff in their individual capacity. so PASSCO give its helpline to complain and there are various other forums to complain about any corrupt practices. The raid and barrier are the responsibility of provincial governments food departments. PASSCO has no role in it.
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