FIA opens inquiry into wheat bag theft at Passco Hafizabad stores
Passco's managing director referred the matter to the FIA director general after an internal check found shortages and irregularities in stocks, official sources say.
The Federal Investigation Agency has opened an inquiry into the alleged theft of thousands of wheat bags from the stores of Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) in Hafizabad, Dawn reported.
Official sources told the newspaper that the inquiry was initiated after Passco's managing director sent a formal reference to the FIA director general. The reference followed an initial internal probe that detected shortages and irregularities in the wheat held at the Hafizabad stores.
Seven senior officials of the Passco zone in Hafizabad, among them the zonal head and the project manager, went into hiding, according to the same sources cited by Dawn. The report did not name them.
Dawn put the quantity alleged to have been taken at thousands of bags. Its account did not give the value of the missing wheat, the period over which the bags disappeared, or say whether anyone had been arrested or booked.
Passco is a state-owned corporation that buys wheat at the official support price and stores it for release to flour mills. Its godowns hold part of the country's strategic reserve, which means a shortfall in a single zone feeds into national supply calculations as well as into the price of flour.
Hafizabad lies in Punjab's central wheat belt, and the district's procurement and storage operations are handled through a Passco zone headed by a zonal head, with project and depot staff beneath him.
The FIA handles federal offences, including allegations of corruption and misappropriation inside state-run corporations. Its inquiry into the Hafizabad stocks is at the stage of gathering records and questioning, and no timeline has been given for its conclusion.
No figure has been made public for the total wheat stock booked at the Hafizabad stores, or for the share that the internal check found missing. Dawn's report is the only public account of the reference so far.
The newspaper's report was filed from Gujrat, the district adjoining Hafizabad.
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