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ISLAMABAD: Special advisor on Finance, Hafeez Shaikh, is continuously ignoring prime minister, Imran Khan’s directions on many issues of public importance.
The prime minister’s direction more than one time for import of wheat to plug off huge gap in demand and supply could be quoted for ready reference on the subject in hand.
Sources told NEWSMAN on the condition of anonymity that the prime minister had shouted at Hafeez Shaikh in one of the recent meetings called in to review wheat and sugar stocks for not taking his direction seriously.
The prime minister gave clear cut orders while chairing the meeting that was attended by Hafeez Shaikh and many other senior officials of different ministries to import 1.5 million tons of wheat through Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) , but Hafeez Shaikh did not take the prime minister’s orders seriously.
Seeing the non-seriousness of Hafeez Shaikh , Imran Khan directly addressed to Hafeez Shaikh by name to ask him to take his orders seriously.
According to the sources, Hafeez Shaikh did keep his cool before the prime minister , but soon after the meeting he told a senior official of his ministry to go slow on the issue of wheat import through TCP .
Sources said Hafeez Shaikh has managed to ignore the prime minister’s orders many times during his tenure as his special advisor on Finance.
Hafeez Shaikh’s go slow policy on wheat import through TCP has proven a double- edge sword for Imran’s government. It resulted in creating panic in the open market that stoked flour prices in the market and at the same time it served as a golden opportunity to the opposition to criticise the government on the issue and get public sympathy.
The government is continuously under pressure as a result of rising prices of the flour and delay tactics of TCP has foiled Imran Khan’s efforts for importing required quantity of wheat to stop surge in the flour price.Taking Hafeez Shaikh’s go slow policy, TCP scrapped its three tenders last week issued for import of wheat without mentioning any reason.
TCP’s policy of issuing international tenders and then scrap them itself is self explanatory.
This TCP strategy has also increased reliance on the private sector to import wheat and help the government keep stocks position to a minimum required level.
Since June last, the private sector has booked orders of 1 2 million tons of wheat , but TCP , for the same period , could book only orders for import of 0.125 million tons wheat against its target of 1.5 million tons.
TCP’s to and fro policy has put the masses in difficult situation. One kg of atta that was available for end buyers for Rs 50 in June 2020 has gone up to Rs 77 in major cities and even higher in small cities of Pakistan.