(Publish from Houston Texas USA)
(By Mian Iftikhar Ahmad)
Pakistan is facing a deepening economic and administrative crisis as powerful mafias tighten their grip on key sectors such as sugar, wheat, petroleum, and real estate. These networks, backed by enormous wealth, political influence, and strong connections within state institutions, have created a parallel system that thrives on manipulation, artificial shortages, overpricing, and institutional weaknesses.
Their unchecked dominance has pushed the country into a cycle of rising prices, public misery, and declining trust in governance. The sugar mafia is among the most influential groups in Pakistan, exercising control from sugarcane procurement to sugar pricing in the open market. Every few years, an artificial crisis is deliberately manufactured. Sugar suddenly disappears from the market while official stock figures are manipulated to create the illusion of scarcity. Within days, prices soar, transferring billions of rupees from the pockets of ordinary citizens into the hands of a few powerful industrialists. Farmers receive low sugarcane rates, their payments are delayed for weeks, and production is intentionally slowed down to create market pressure. Political families owning sugar mills often influence government decisions, leaving regulating authorities helpless. As a result, sugar prices remain unstable, and inflation continues to burden the public.
The wheat mafia has jeopardized the country’s food security by turning wheat and flour into tools of profiteering. Every year, government claims about wheat production, stock levels, and imports clash with ground realities because the mafia manipulates official data to create artificial shortages. Large amounts of wheat disappear from government warehouses, smuggled out through corruption and collusion. Irregular supplies to flour mills and widespread hoarding caused flour prices to rise repeatedly during the year. Illegal exports, mismanagement in local procurement, and excessive reliance on private traders have worsened the crisis, making affordable flour a dream for the average citizen.
In the petroleum sector, mafia influence has become even more dangerous because fuel prices directly affect every household and every industry. Although international market fluctuations do impact domestic pricing, the real issue lies in internal manipulation. Oil marketing companies frequently create artificial shortages, halt supplies, keep pumps closed, and wait for the government to announce a price hike so they can reap massive profits. The Collusion between importers, refineries, and influential groups has turned petroleum into the biggest driver of inflation.
Transport fares rise, manufacturing costs increase, agricultural operations become expensive, and the public remains trapped in a relentless cycle of price shocks. The property mafia has distorted Pakistan’s urban infrastructure and crushed the dream of homeownership for millions. Illegal housing societies, fake plots, fraudulent files, double booking, land encroachments, artificially inflated prices, and unregulated development have turned real estate into a hub of large-scale corruption. Prices rise not because of genuine demand but because the mafia manipulates the market through speculation and land hoarding.
Regulatory bodies often stand silent or act as facilitators. As a result, even financially stable families are now unable to buy a home, while rents rise sharply due to the artificially inflated property market. The unchecked power of these mafias is due to weak governance, corrupt practices, political compromises, and a broken accountability system. When the law protects the powerful instead of the public, when institutions lack independence, and when policy decisions are shaped by vested interests rather than national priorities, mafias flourish, and the state collapses. This is exactly what is happening in Pakistan.
The consequences are visible in rising inflation, unemployment, poverty, and the widespread sense of hopelessness among citizens. Economic activity slows down, investment declines, and public trust in institutions erodes. Ultimately, it is the common man who suffers the most. There is an urgent need for comprehensive and social reforms to curb this growing mafia culture. The state must enforce strong regulation of sugar production and pricing, ensure transparent monitoring of wheat stocks, conduct strict audits of petroleum companies, and implement effective oversight of the real estate sector.
Accountability must be swift and impartial, targeting not only external actors but also government officials who act as facilitators. If decisive action is not taken, these mafias will continue to strengthen their roots, dragging Pakistan deeper into economic instability, public suffering, and institutional collapse. The government must prioritize national interest over political compromise to restore transparency, fairness, and moral stability. Only then can Pakistan move toward a sustainable future where markets are regulated, citizens are protected, and mafias are stripped of their destructive power.
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