Published :
Updated :
For all latest news, follow The Financial Express Google News channel.
Egg, milk, chicken, beef, mutton and vegetables including potato, aubergine are most in demand especially in the holy month of Ramadan. But as is the usual practice with the traders of the essential commodities in Bangladesh, they invariably raise the prices of these commodities during this month without rhyme or reason. This Ranadan, too, is no exception. As reported in this paper in its Saturday (March 1) issue, the prices of those essential ingredients of Ramadan delicacies like Beguni, piaju, potato chop, you name it, have gone up to the dismay of the fasting devout Muslins, majority of them belonging to the low-income bracket.
Suddenly, the price of brinjal, an essential ingredient of beguni without which the breakfast seems incomplete, has shot up to between Tk80 and Tk 100 per kilogram (kg). This is an overnight increase by Tk20 per kg. Why is this increase before Ramadan? The common answer from the retailers in the kitchen market is that demand has increased in this holy month and so has those essential goods' prices. But no one has ever heard that due to an increase in supply of the Ramadan essentials, which is usually the case during big religious events like Ramadan, the prices have come down. So, prices of meat including beef have seen an increase of Tk20 to Tk30 per kg in a week. Strangely, in the Western countries, during their religious festivals like Christmas, businesses give substantial discounts on every conceivable kind of products including foods, clothes, luxury items, travel, to mention but a few.
Of course, such price cuts have to do with abundant supply of those commodities during the festivals. The law of the market apart, the businesses of those countries unlike those in this part of the world, have great respect for their religion. The big discounts against both essential and non-essential commodities they provide during their religious occasions are only reflective of it.
Returning to our story of Ramadan market, it has to be admitted that prices of essential items like sugar, onion etc., are stable, though prices of edible oils remain as high as ever. In fact, soybean is still out of market. Why? Because, the distributors have still maintained their grip on the supply of soybean oil as before creating an artificial supply crisis about which the authorities concerned in the interim government could do little so far. By now, particularly, during Ramadan, the government should have been able to put its foot down to compel the defiant soybean oil distributors to see reason or face the consequences. But one wonders, what is holding the interim government back from being strict against the syndicate of soybean oil distributors who are flagrantly violating all norms to the utter distress of the common public, even in the holy month of Ramadan?
No doubt, the inauguration of the programme of opening fair price shops for essential items including milk, egg , beef and so on at some 25 points in the capital city is a commendable move made by the fisheries and livestock adviser. That the programme would continue during the entire Ramadan is, hopefully, good news for the segment of the common consumers who can afford to buy those items from the fair price shops. But those lucky consumers are an insignificant portion of the entire population, the majority of whom are fasting Muslims. Everywhere in the country the prices of those commodities will remain volatile despite the claim of various members of the interim government to the contrary. This all sounds like what the general public was used to hearing during previous regimes that everything is fine. But the fact remains that the essential commodities market is hostage to a cartel of big importers and distributors who consider as though they are a law unto themselves.
It seems to be true, for no political government so far could wrest control of the essential market from the said cartel of distributors. The political governments, the previous dictatorial regime, for instance, could not control the volatile essential market since its so-called MPs, party honchos and political goons were themselves part of the cartels or syndicates. Obviously, whatever ostensible measures that or other past governments would have taken against the market manipulators were pure hogwash. Unsurprisingly, the so-called syndicates or cartels would control the markets of edible oils or other items irrespective of their being imported or locally produced.
But under the changed condition, there is no question that members of the interim government have anything to do with the so-called market syndicates. Even so, thus far, the law enforcement and monitoring teams of the interim government have done precious little to bring the non-compliant market manipulators under control. It goes without saying that there are loyalists of the previous dictatorial regime everywhere. A large segment of the essential commodities market is controlled by these loyalists of the past government. They would like to see that the interim government fails. Should this government then like to fulfil the design of the loyalists of the deposed regime or be up to the challenge?
True, other than the essential commodities market, the interim government has to deal with multiple challenges from different other fronts. The stubbornly high inflation, which was 9.67 per cent in February, a slight drop by 19 basis points from the previous month, is still high. Though the foreign exchange reserve position recently showed a slight improvement from what it was before, it is still far behind the comfortable level. One can name a hundred and one such issues that are clamouring for attention of the interim government. So, it has to proritise which problems need addressing urgently.
It is nothing short of a war that the interim government is facing. As expected, its preparations should be equal to the task. At the moment, the battle is against the high price of some of the Ramadan essentials. But these essential commodities are the essentials round the year. In that case, the government should be all out in combating irrational essentials prices hike, particularly in fighting those behind artificially creating edible oil supply crisis thereby driving up their prices irrationally.