ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry has said that the price of sugar has dropped by Rs43 per kilogramme while criticising the media for its alleged failure to air the news.
“The price of sugar has dropped by, not Rs5 or Rs10 per kilogramme, but by Rs43 per kilogramme,” the minister claimed in a Twitter post on Sunday.
Criticising the media for ‘refraining’ from broadcasting the development, Fawad said: “The fact is our media runs on [airing] conspiracies and [instability] in the country.”
The minister then went on to term “the link of the negative media with fake news” extremely detrimental, saying, “This is why new [media] laws are necessary.”
Moreover, while responding to a query of a citizen regarding sugar hoarders, Fawad replied, “Sugar mill owners have acquired a stay on their cases, and urged the courts to expedite the proceedings.”
A week ago, the minister had lambasted mill owners for creating the artificial sugar crisis to exploit the common man and assured that the stock of sugar in the country was adequate for at least three weeks.
He had also accused Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and the Sharif family of increasing sugar prices as most of the sugar mills in Sindh and Punjab belonged to them.
The information minister had highlighted how 90,000 tonnes of sugar was currently with the private sector.
