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Editorial: Sugar cartel

The Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) has implicitly conceded a number of charges levelled against it by the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP). The CCP had issued a show-cause notice to the PSMA for a prima facie case of cartelisation after the completion of an enquiry report. The CCP would issue a show-cause notice to other sugar mills after the initial hearing of the PSMA case.

The sugar crisis has badly affected everyone in Pakistan in recent times. Last month, the Supreme Court ordered the government to devise a mechanism to ensure availability of sugar at Rs 40 per kg to domestic consumers. Whether one accepts or rejects the notion of the courts’ involvement in the administrative or economic issues of the country, the fact remains that the apex court’s decision makes it incumbent on the federal and provincial governments to follow these orders. The government now also has to ensure a steady and uninterrupted supply of sugar all over the country. The sugar mill owners have banded together as a cartel to withhold supplies and have increased the price artificially by hoarding sugar. This amounts to contempt of court.

The government has to come up with a strategy to tackle the sugar crisis. In past years, the food ration system was instituted to provide staple foods at controlled prices but it was eventually abandoned because of widespread abuse. However, the policy framework to allow free market forces to determine the price of essential items has also failed. Adam Smith’s laissez faire philosophy cannot be applied because neither markets nor competition is fair, certainly in Pakistan, arguably globally. The market has only exploited the consumer, especially when it comes to essential items like sugar. There are many lacunae in the sugar policy. It does not benefit the growers of sugarcane because the owners have devised a strategy to let the sucrose content of the sugarcane decrease before they buy it by delaying the growers at the factory gate. Nothing has been done about the exploitation of the growers and the consumers because there is a powerful mafia behind it all. The bulk of the sugar mill owners are in politics and sitting in parliament, and therefore able to block any move against their monopolist manipulation of the sugar market (NAB’s abortive foray into this field should be kept in mind).

One cannot imagine the woes of ordinary citizens who are faced with inflation, unemployment, high utility bills and now exorbitant rates of essential items like sugar. Almost one-third of Pakistan’s population lives below the poverty line. The poor man works endlessly for two meals a day, and when food prices rise steeply, it is impossible for the poor to get even two square meals a day. Such has been the misery of the poor man in Pakistan. The prices of atta, sugar, and ghee have gone through the roof, apart from many other staple food items. Surely, the government cannot remain aloof from the miseries heaped on the people by the rising prices of food commodities. The government has to take positive and concrete steps to alleviate poverty and look into this serious problem in a broader perspective. It should keep in mind that poverty breeds crime and general social unrest.

Perhaps the only solution is to nationalise the sugar industry. Those who say that it would be a mistake should not confuse the proposal with the 70s nationalisation. It failed mainly because it was handed over to the bureaucracy. The government should seriously consider nationalising the sugar industry and handle it in a better way this time through corporatisation of the sector, with professional management. By doing nothing about the sugar crisis, the government will end up being equally blamed along with the sugar cartel in holding the country and the people to ransom. *

Second Editorial:Taliban’s impact on polio drive

The NWFP Health Department has expressed concern over the rising number of polio cases in the province and FATA. According to the UNICEF chief in the province, 45 cases of polio infection have been reported — 27 in NWFP and 18 in FATA — during the current year. Significantly, out of 27 cases in the settled areas, 20 were reported in Swat, 2 in Upper Dir and one in Shangla while Bajaur Agency reported 14 out of the 18 cases in FATA. All these areas are former strongholds of the Taliban and the target of Mullah Fazlullah’s illegal, ill-informed and effectively destructive radio broadcasts. The WHO acting chief in NWFP has reported that a few years ago, Swat and Bajaur were polio-free. It is heartening to note that the polio vaccine refusal ratio in the province has dropped to 0.6 percent this year as against 2006 when 70 percent of the province’s population refused to take the vaccine.

Polio is one health concern where the government has been singularly successful. The polio vaccination drive was launched by slain PPP leader Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister in 1994, the year when Pakistan registered 25,000 cases. The comprehensive campaign, accompanied by the requisite number of staff and medicines, brought down polio cases to 558 in 1999, 28 in 2005, and to single digits throughout Pakistan in 2006, the year when the Taliban menace hit the north-western areas.

The Swat Taliban launched a campaign against polio immunisation in early 2006. The ulterior motive was to render the state machinery redundant but the vicious drive included several patently unscientific and false arguments to catch the public attention. Rumours were spread that the polio campaign is a western conspiracy to induce infertility among children. Ironically, the complementary argument was that polio vaccination accelerates puberty among girls. One Taliban radio announcer claimed that the polio vaccination drops included former US President Bush’s urine. In June 2006, a petition was filed in the Peshawar High Court to stop polio vaccination, citing some Nigerian quasi-medical source. The polio vaccine is fully certified by the WHO and no traces of the polio vaccine can remain in or affect the human body. It was ignored that the same vaccination was being administered to children in more than 50 Muslim majority countries and Saudi Arabia did not allow the entry of children in the country without a polio vaccination certificate. In accordance with the tested pattern of Taliban tactics, propaganda went hand in hand with intimidation. A health worker on a polio motivation assignment was killed in February 2006 in Bajaur Agency. In August 2007, armed militants took a 12-member polio team hostage (again in Bajaur) and only released them after severe torture. Elsewhere, polio teams were threatened, manhandled and harassed till the government was forced to call off the polio campaign in Taliban-dominated areas in 2007-8.

Now that the anticipated, though still unfortunate outcome of that ignorant campaign is damaging our children, it is time that the public be informed about the details of the long-term damage that the Taliban mindset brought to this country, Unfortunately, such damage is not restricted to polio but damaged us in diverse fields such as economics, education, culture, and above all, the political prospects of this country. *

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