PESHAWAR – The Flour Crisis in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) is no accident. It is the predictable result of Punjab’s repeated attempts to weaponise wheat, turning a basic staple into a political tool.
Once again, people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are being forced to pay the price for a policy that reeks of short-term thinking and entrenched bias. Punjab officials claim floods have disrupted supply chains. But even a cursory look at the markets shows another story: permits for wheat traders in KP have been abruptly cancelled, and inter-provincial movement curtailed.
What this achieves, in practice, is the creation of scarcity. Scarcity, of course, drives prices up — and those who benefit are the well-connected cartels that thrive in Pakistan’s opaque food economy. In Punjab itself, a 10kg flour bag now costs 1,000 rupees (about 3.6 US dollars), while in KP it is even higher. For a province already struggling with unemployment and rising living costs, this is not just an inconvenience — it is a crisis of survival.
History offers little comfort. Successive governments have played the same game: exporting wheat and sugar when reserves are plentiful, only to panic when shortages emerge and re-import them at inflated prices. The result? Mafias enrich themselves, state coffers are drained, and ordinary families go hungry.
This cycle continues because accountability is absent. No government has ever been forced to answer for why strategic reserves vanish or why stockpiled wheat is not released when disaster strikes. Instead, the narrative shifts — floods, India’s water aggression, global prices — always some convenient excuse to mask mismanagement.
The Flour Crisis in KP is a reminder that bread is not just a matter of markets, but of justice. If Pakistan’s federation is to mean anything, Punjab must abandon the arrogance of hoarding and open the grain gates to its neighbours. Food security is not a provincial luxury; it is a national obligation.
