ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) chief justice has taken suo moto notice of wheat flour wastage of billions of rupee per annum and summoned National Food Security and Research secretary. Pakistan Standard Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) chairman, Pakistan Polypropylene Woven Sack chairman Iskander M Khan for August 7, 2020 to explain their position on the subject.
IHC CJ has taken suo moto notice of loss being caused to the national exchequer through wastage of wheat flour on the basis of media reports, highlighting criminal negligence of the concerned government departments including PSQCA.
Media, both electronic and print, is continuously highlighting the issue as non -food grade packing is not only causing loss of over Rs 38 billion every year through wastage of wheat flour, but also a cause of serious diseases like cancer and lung infection. The World Health Organisation (WHO) had also directed the government to take effective measures to stop the use of non- food grade package of wheat flour and end risk to health of Pakistani people. PSQCA, which is directly responsible of following international standards for packing of all edible in food grade packing got approval to stop the use of recycled cement bags for wheat flour packing and issued its mandatory SRO in 2017, but it as of today did not implement its mandatory SRO to put an end to the use of substandard, low quality packing for wheat flour. It resulted in continuous use of non food grade packing for wheat flour across Pakistan, causing loss of over Rs 38 billion to the national kitty besides giving spike to serious diseases like cancer and respiratory diseases in the country.
Thanks to IHC CJ who finally has taken notice to check the cause of non-implementation of mandatory SRO of 2017, of PSQCA. This correspondent had highlighted the issue in one of his stories published in NEWSMAN digital newspaper a couple of weeks ago. This correspondent contacted to PSQCA officials to get their version for my previous story. At that time, PSQCA spokesperson, Mr Ali Bux, misled this correspondent intentionally by giving wrong information. He tried to pass on the buck on the provinces for non-implementation of mandatory SRO of his own department.
Sources at PSQCA said this is a clear case of criminal negligence. IHC may refer it to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for determining the reasons, which resulted in loss of billions of rupee even after the issuance of a mandatory PSQCA SRO.