PTI, PPP leaders hold each other responsible for wheat flour crisis in Sindh.

KARACHI -- Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leaders on Sunday blamed each other governments in the Centre and Sindh, respectively for their failure in overcoming the wheat shortage and increasing prices of flour in the city.

Addressing a presser at the Insaf House, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Vice President and parliamentary leader in the Sindh assembly Haleem Adil Sheikh said that the provincial government was directly responsible for the ongoing wheat flour crisis. Sheikh said for a last few days, some vested interests in Sindh were trying their best to hold the federal government responsible for the crisis.

He said, however, the facts told a different story, and exposed the ugly face of the provincial government, its corruption and mismanagement.

He said that there was a stockpile of 0.4 million tonnes of wheat reserved for Sindh in the godowns of Passco, but the Sindh government had only lifted 0.1 million tonnes of it, while the rest of the stock of 0.3 million tonnes was still lying in the Passco godowns, which were situated not in Lahore or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), but in Sindh. The PTI leader said when Nawaz Sharif was the country's prime minister there was a pact to supply wheat to Afghanistan, but the PTI government withdrew from this agreement last July. Sheikh said that Rs9 billion were 'looted' by the rulers of Sindh, but the anti-corruption department of the province had yet to file its report in this regard.

He asked as to in whose pockets these Rs9 billion had actually landed?

He said that 0.3 million tonnes of wheat was lying in Passco godowns even today, and that, too, in Sindh, but the provincial government, in order to malign the federal government, had created this crisis of wheat.

He made it clear that the provincial government was responsible for supplying wheat to the flour mills and others associated with this business.

Regretting that Bilawal was making uproar over 'injustice' with Sindh, he said the injustice was done by those who had looted the government funds and minted money during wheat procurement and its distribution.

Haleem Adil Sheikh said that under the 18th Amendment the food department was now with the Sindh government, and hopefully Bilawal would also give a statement in this regard.

The PTI leader said corruption mafia in Sindh had sold 0.8 million tonnes of wheat to its favourites on credit, and made no recovery from them. He said now the NAB had taken action...