KP governor halts supply of flood-damaged wheat to flour mills

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Faisal Karim Kundi has ordered an immediate halt to the supply of potentially hazardous wheat from the Azakhel wheat godown to flour mills across the province, after an inquiry found the grain had been damaged by floodwater, The Express Tribune reported.

The governor chaired a high-level meeting on Wednesday to review the findings of the Governor Inspection Team, which looked into the supply of substandard wheat from the facility.

The province has been under governor’s rule since October 11, giving the governor direct control of the provincial administration.

The inquiry found that the flood-damaged grain at the Azakhel godown was unfit for human consumption, according to the Tribune.

What the inspectors found

Team chairman Mukhtiar Ahmad told the governor that the team had inspected the 150-kanal facility at Azakhel. Its findings:

• Flooded godowns: six godowns in two blocks of the complex had been inundated by floodwater.
• No protection: basic measures to shield the godown from floods had never been taken, despite repeated alerts from the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA).
• No assessment: after the flooding, the Food Department did not form a technical committee to check the quality and safety of the wheat.
• No records: the department’s stock records had no entry for the flood-damaged wheat, and it had carried out no scientific testing of its own before the inspection team stepped in.

After the team’s inspection, samples of the damaged wheat were sent to the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research for testing.

Kundi asked why, given the site’s history of repeated flooding, a proper protective wall had never been built. Officials told him gaps and holes in an unfinished barrier let rain and floodwater pour straight into the storage blocks, spoiling large amounts of wheat.

The governor’s orders

Kundi ordered that no wheat considered hazardous to health be supplied from Azakhel to flour mills. He told officials to:

• protect the remaining wheat reserves
• enforce strict quality controls on food commodities
• fix individual responsibility for the lapses that put public health at risk
• make sure future storage sites are protected against natural disasters, with transparent records and independent quality checks as standard

He said protecting essential food stocks was a basic responsibility of the provincial administration, and officials were told to submit a follow-up compliance report.

All procurements under review

Separately, the KP chief secretary’s office has ordered all administrative secretaries and heads of attached departments to review every ongoing government procurement in the province, the Tribune reported.

The review covers the purchase of goods, construction works and services, at every stage from initiation to final approval. Each case will be judged on genuine need and merit, with emphasis on checking that funds are available, the law is followed and the process is transparent.

Administrative secretaries must ensure the review covers their own departments as well as attached directorates and divisional and district offices. Any ongoing procurement will continue only in line with the review’s findings.

The wheat findings come after flour prices surged in Peshawar and other cities this month.