Attempts being made to create a wheat crisis in country, says Murtaza Wahab

KARACHI: Adviser to the chief minister Sindh Syed Murtaza Wahab alleged that attempts were being made by the Centre to create another wheat crisis, and this was mainly due to the 'incompetence' of the incumbent rulers. 

The Sindh government spokesperson was holding a press conference on Wednesday where he said that the provincial government had rejected the Centre's proposal to release wheat immediately from its stocks. 

Wahab, however, said that a decision to this effect would be taken later by the provincial cabinet, keeping in view the prevailing wheat situation in the country. 

Blaming 'incompetent' rulers at the Centre, the chief minister's adviser said that artificial shortages are created by the federal government to benefit their allies. 

"The policy of these rulers is to create shortage of any commodity so as to benefit their allies. We are concerned that Sindh's wheat will be stored in other provinces as there is a big difference in wheat prices in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh," he said. 

Wahab said that the wheat crisis had been reported during the incumbent government's tenure, which showed that it had bowed before the mafia and that the mafia had become powerful. 

He further added that the wheat crisis was worsening across the country as the Centre had disturbed the entire demand and supply process of the commodity. Wahab lashed out at the government by saying that it had also not done anything substantial to tackle the locusts' situation in the country. 

He blamed the government for failing to tackle the rising prices of medicines and for not being able to make petroleum available across the country at lower rates. Touching upon the loadshedding crisis in the country, Wahab said that frequent power outages across the city were taking place despite tall claims of ending loadshedding by the governor and federal minister Asad Umar. 

Wahab slammed the PTI's protest against the K-Electric, saying that those responsible for the electricity crisis in the city had staged a drama in the form of a useless sit-in outside the head-office of the power distribution company in Karachi.