PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Food Minister Zahir Shah Toro has claimed that the mafia is spreading baseless propaganda against the Chief Minister and the provincial government to achieve their malicious goals.
“The mafia has even threatened me with death for failing to achieve the desired objectives in wheat procurement, but I have not compromised on transparency and merit. He said, “I can claim that the Chief Minister has never interfered in any small or big work of my ministry.”
Speaking exclusively to Pakhtun Digital, Provincial Minister Zahir Shah further said that for the first time in the history of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, wheat samples were sent to the laboratory to ensure better quality of wheat. A high-level committee was formed to test the quality of wheat.
In response to a question, he said that one of the reasons for buying wheat from Punjab was that we did not know about the quality of imported wheat, what the weather was like there, and how old the wheat was. The second reason was that Punjab produced more wheat than they needed, so we decided to buy wheat from Punjab.
Zahir Shah Toro further said that a formal procedure has been made to maintain transparency in all departments of the province, and all institutions are bound to implement this procedure.
He said that a first-come, first-served policy was adopted in the purchase of wheat. The wheat mafia used various tactics to thwart this policy, and regular FIRs have been registered for these incidents. I have even received death threats.
