NAB releases a report on wheat crisis

NAB released a report on the wheat crisis in Sindh after it authorised nine inquiries into nine Provisional Reserve Centres in the province. The report claims to have uncovered scams amounting to Rs15.85 billion over two years.

The bureau said it has already recovered Rs10 billion from flour mill owners and department officials who abetted the scams. The recovery can be broken down into Rs2 billion in plea bargains and Rs8 billion from mill owners in the wake of the inquiries.

According to NAB, mill owners had procured wheat worth Rs9.75 billion on three-month credit from the department but hadn’t paid for it even after three years.

The nine PRCs include ones in Sukkur, Nawabshah and Larkana. Wheat worth Rs5.35 billion went missing from these nine districts while wheat worth Rs74 million that was on its way to Karachi also vanished.

Earlier, the food department understated the scam and only admitted to an embezzlement of Rs4 billion.

When it looked into which mill owners owed the food department money, NAB found that officials were involved in the scam.

Despite these recoveries, a gap of Rs5.14 billion has yet to be recovered, according to the report.

The Sukkur chapter of the accountability watchdog initiated the inquiry after it received a number of scam complaints.