ISLAMABAD, Aug 12: With beef and mutton prices increasing at an average of Rs10 per kilogram each month during the past two years, the butcher and meat exporters are playing blame game, making consumers to suffer.

As the government seems to be helpless, butchers blame exporters for creating shortage of animals in the country whereas exporters say that local meat sellers are manipulating the prices.

Mutton used to be available between Rs280 and Rs300 per kg in February 2009, and rose to Rs460 by November 2010 and in August 2011, it has reached to Rs560 in major cities of the country, whereas in the high-end markets it is available at Rs600 per kg.

The butchers attribute severe shortage of goats and cattle to their exports, and claim that the exporters are not only buying meat in huge quantities but they jack up prices as well.

“The exporters increase the markets rates,” said Sikander Iqbal Qureshi, Joint Secretary, Meat Merchants Association, “If the exports are banned we will be able to sell mutton at Rs300 per kg.”

Incidentally, similar views were expressed by the officials of commerce ministry in a recent meeting held in the last week of July and the Commerce minister noted that prices of mutton and beef were increasing due to the heavy exports of processed meat and live animals.

The ministry has decided to ban exports of meat and animals for three months from Ramazan to Eidul Azha.

“This would help in bridging the demand-supply gap and bring meat and animal prices down,” the commerce minister, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, said.

However, the decision was withdrawn by the commerce ministry within two hours without assigning any reason.

The meat merchants allege that exporters enjoy influence with the commerce ministry.

“The strong groups are getting involved in this business, we have heard that Hamza Shabaz Sharif is meat and live animals exporter,” Chairman Jamiatul Quraish, Khurshed Qureshi said. The official data of the Federal Bureau of Statistics said that meat and meat preparations exported in the year 2010-11 was 51.76 million tons worth $153.82 million.

However, the exports stood at 5 per cent of the national beef and mutton consumption. Even the former chairman Pakistan Poultry Association Dr Mohammad Ajmal said that the national beef as well as chicken consumption was around 6 kg per capita per annum, and mutton was less than 4 kg.

In this way the national beef and mutton consumption is one billion tons compared to 51.76 million tons of exports.

On their part the exporters said that there was no shortage of cattle, goats and sheep in the country, but the meat sellers were using this pretext to increase prices.

“If there are shortages of animals in Pakistan than how are the butchers maintaining meat supplies,” said Syed Hasan Raza, Secretary General All Pakistan Meat Exporters and Processors Association adding, “Do we see any place where meat is unavailable.”

Mr Raza said that even today there was a wide gap between the prices and the quality of meat in major cities and those areas where cattle, sheep and goats were found in abundance.The meat merchants are using various pretexts to maintain the price upward and the last one was damage caused to the livestock due to floods in 2010, but there has not been any serious meat shortfall during the whole year.

One major reason for the failure of the authorities is to maintain meat prices is lack of coordination among the various tiers of government.

The prices and quality of meat is the subject of local governments, the promotion of livestock sector is a provincial matter and the exports of meat and animals fall under the federal purview.

If there is no effective mechanism to regulate meat and live animal prices the citizens of Pakistan could witness serious hike in prices of cattle, goats and sheep on the occasion of Eidul Azha.