Dollar-lust will trigger worst-ever food crisis….

Remember the export of wheat about three years ago by Pakistan triggering a very serious food shortage in the country leading to phenomenal rise in food prices? The same wheat was imported back at exorbitant prices. Since then the price of wheat and flour is constantly on the rise. This was perhaps one of the biggest corruption scandals of the Shaukat Aziz government. It seems that the present government has learnt only one lesson from this regrettable decision; do it again and make billions at the cost of millions of hapless “voters” who you will need only in the next season of “democracy”. Interestingly, this decision, which has been taken to be able to pay off central bank loans, has been taken at a moment when wheat prices are at the lowest in the international market.

It is simply beyond comprehension why export is needed to pay off SBP loans which essentially are in local currency. It seems that the driving factor behind this imprudent decision is dollar-lust. Express Tribune has reported that after a ban stretching more than three years, the government on Tuesday allowed the export of wheat in a bid to pay back central bank debt, a move that could result in a serious food crisis since a World Bank (WB) report has already warned of a five-million-ton drop in production in the next crop. The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet allowed the grain export without imposing any cap on quantity. It is expected that wheat will be exported in massive quantities since Russia, the world’s largest wheat producer, has banned the grain export resulting in price surge in the international market.

The ECC assessed a $300 per ton (Rs1,040 per 40 kilogram) wheat price in the international market, anticipating a further hike in coming days. Although the government has fixed the wheat price at Rs950 per 40 kg in the domestic market, farmers usually receive an average Rs850. Pakistan is the third largest wheat producer. The ban on export of wheat was slapped in June 2007 when because of incoherent policies the country first exported the commodity and then had to spend over $1 billion to import the same for domestic consumption.

The ministry of food and agriculture’s summary to the ECC proposed lifting the ban primarily to pay back debt taken from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to buy wheat, make room for next year’s crop storage and capitalize on higher prices in the international market. Total wheat stocks are estimated at 9.07 million tons, of which 6.1 million tons are in Punjab. “The Punjab government is paying Rs77.5 million per day interest on loans,” obtained for buying wheat, says the summary. The federal government is picking up Rs24.6 million from the amount.

The production target in the pre-flood scenario was also estimated at 25 million tons. According to the Damage and Need Assessment Report of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, “wheat production may reach only 20 million tons opposed to an average production of almost 23 million tons in the last three years.”

The report goes on to say that there is concern about the possible impact of reduced wheat output in the coming season on food security. Around 78,000 tons of wheat were either destroyed or damaged in Punjab during the recent floods.

The 4D catastrophe….Death, Disease, Destruction and now the Debt-trap….

With about two thousand people dead, millions homeless and deadly diseases spreading, mighty Indus is still furious and this death and destruction is only one side of the story. And its only the beginning.  Deadlier still are events unfolding as are the stories of Government’s incompetence to deal with this situation. The floods are an excellent recipe of disaster for Pakistan as a country, if those rich elite who plundered it do not cough up whole of the looted wealth or at least a fraction of it. Pakistan’s already creaky economy has been pushed to the verge of ruin by the devastating floods of the past month. With foreign aid only now beginning to trickle in, the impoverished country has been forced to take out further loans while pleading for outstanding ones to be restructured.

Already burdened by heavy debt, the country’s economy has suffered a major setback. According to the Independent, funds will have to be poured into reconstruction efforts while many sectors of the economy, especially agriculture, will suffer losses for up to several months, if not years.

So far, the floods have covered a fifth of the country, cost at least 1,600 lives, displaced 4.6 million people, destroyed roads, bridges and schools, damaged power stations and dams, and swamped millions of acres of agricultural land. About 150,000 Pakistanis were forced to move to higher ground yesterday as water from a freshly swollen Indus River submerged dozens more towns and villages in the south. Officials expect the floods to recede across the country in the next few days as the last river torrents empty into the Arabian Sea. Survivors may find little left when they return home. Already, 600,000 people are in relief camps set up in Sindh during the past month. The floods have affected about one-fifth of Pakistan’s territory; at least six million people have been made homeless, and 20 million affected overall.

Some officials estimate that the cost of rebuilding infrastructure could be $15bn, money that Islamabad simply doesn’t have. As of July, Pakistan had a debt of $55.5bn. That figure will jump to $73bn in 2015-16, as debts that were rescheduled after 9/11, in As a result of the tragedy, the budget deficit will grow, inflation will rise, and economic growth will slow – all areas where the fund had wanted to see progress in the opposite direction.

At the same time, Islamabad has secured loans of $1bn from the World Bank and $2bn from the Asian Development Bank to help relief efforts and begin the task to rehabilitation and reconstruction. Government officials say that they were left with no option but to approach the banks as foreign aid has generated only a fraction of what’s needed. The disaster has revealed decades of infrastructural neglect that damns successive governments. However efficiently the current government may have been able to mobilize resources, the state’s capacity was woefully lacking in the first place.

Some 17 million acres of agricultural land have been submerged by the floods, which are still raging in the southern province of Sindh. Key crops including wheat, cotton and rice have been affected. Pakistan’s economy has long suffered problems because of its embarrassingly narrow tax base. Broad sections of the wealthy, including senior politicians, pay little or no tax. But Mr Sheikh said that the crisis could be an opportunity to take tough economic decisions the government has long wanted to. “We could push through a sales tax, introduce a flood surcharge on well-to-do people and get some leeway from the IMF.”