RECORDER REPORT

LAHORE: The Central Committee of the Pakistan Flour Mills Association (PFMA) has postponed its meeting scheduled in Karachi during the current week in the wake of directives passed by the Lahore High Court to the Punjab government and the Punjab Food Department to decide pending cases of dollars equivalent to rebate on the export in next 10 days.

In a joint statement issued on Monday, PFMA Central Committee Chairman Badaruddin Kakkar and Central Leader Asim Raza Ahmad announced the postponement of the meeting. However, they warned that they were closely monitoring the situation which was causing liquidity crunch to the wheat exporters and flour mills. If a decision was not taken in the stipulated period, they would call an emergent meeting and decide future line of action.

Asim Raza Ahmad said the payment of Rs 2.5 billion was pending with the Punjab Food Department and an amount of Rs 3 billion of rebate was pending with the State Bank of Pakistan. However, they would get the payment from SBP only after clearance of cases by the Punjab Food Department, he added.

Kakkar and Asim said the PFMA had filed a petition in the Lahore High Court in this regard which had issued directions to the authority concerned for clearance of dues within 10 days. Following these directives, the meeting already scheduled was postponed. However, if these directives were not met by the Punjab government, they would convene emergent meeting to adopt some future line of action, they added.