Daily Times Editorial 26 October 2020

Dealing with sugar cartels

Now that a Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) investigation has found that the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) has long been involved in cartelisaion, it remains to be seen how the government responds. Cracking down on corruption is, after all, clearly its favourite part of governance and runaway sugar price inflation has long been one of the things that has left it helpless. Everybody sees how the PM promises to sort the entire industry out very soon, yet he’s just been unable to do anything at all about it in more than two years. Now, since CCP has also identified how PSMA has been enabling its cartels to inflate prices and make heavy profits, action on the part of the state should be swift and decisive.

Yet PSMA has simply denied all the allegations. CCP’s just not up to conducting such extensive and sensitive investigations, it says, and it does seem that it really expects any action from the government. The biggest problem, for those who want an element of fair play within the industry, is that being sugar mill owners happens to be the favourite profession of many of the country’s biggest and most successful politicians. And spending their time in the halls of power forever seems to have given them a feeling of immunity of sorts, and with good reason since they have been able to shield themselves from the law with such ease for so long.

But the Imran Khan administration was supposed to be different. And the number-one reason for its rising disapproval among the people is its inability to control rising prices, especially in items of daily use just like sugar. Now that it has an actionable roadmap of sorts, at least it has been made aware of at least some of the problems caused by mill owners themselves, it is expected to acted quickly and decisively. It just doesn’t work with the people that every few days the head of state promises decisive action that would rationalise prices, everybody breathes a sigh of relief, and then nothing happens. This is especially of concern when it comes from a government that makes such a big deal about safeguarding the interests of the most vulnerable among us. CCP has laid the groundwork for putting at least some things right. The ball is now in the government’s court.

Spoilers active in Afghanistan

The world ought to quickly understand the wisdom of Pakistan’s approach towards the Afghan peace process. Frist, when everybody wanted to physically end the Taliban by bombing and capturing them, Pakistan was telling them to talk to the insurgents otherwise the war would never end. And it was only after almost two decades of all the lost men and money that they understood that Islamabad was right all along. Then, when they started talking and everything seemed fine, it was Pakistan once again that warned about ‘spoilers’ and how they could very quickly undo all that had been achieved so painstakingly.

And, quite on cue, the bad guys have gone active just as the chances of peace are growing. Pakistan has long warned about all the players in the script that can give sleepless nights to normal Afghans who want nothing more than peaceful, normal lives. Chief among all the suspects are Indian agents. The biggest loser of the peace process is no doubt New Delhi, especially since it had spent so much time and money to worm its way into Kabul’s confidence only to erect a base from which it could conveniently launch attacks into Pakistan. And now that that particular leverage is going, Delhi is panicking and trying to step up its offensive, so to speak.

The other spoilers are militias like IS (Islamic State) and other remnants of the one-time alliance headed by al Qaeda. You can count on desperate governments like India to keep them alive and take care of their needs so long as they are able to mount attacks and hurt the peace process. Let’s not forget that it was the Taliban, not the Afghan army or the Americans, that led the only successful campaign against IS in Afghanistan. That is but one of the reasons that ordinary Afghans have lent their support and sympathy to the Taliban since at least 2006, which was when they really turned the war around. And that, along with the success against the occupying forces, is what gave them the momentum to call the shots in this instructive war. Hopefully all parties concerned will realise that peace is in fact more important than a politically correct withdrawal, even if the latter wins them the election in Washington.