Editorial
Busting market syndicate
Action, not mere words expected
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina has again warned of tough action against unscrupulous traders' syndicates and hoarders behind artificially hiking up essentials prices and creating food grain crisis in the market. Earlier too she on different occasions had issued similar warnings against dishonest traders. To all appearances, the prime minister's tough words have been lost on the coteries responsible for hoarding and various kinds of market distortion. Because so far the prices of daily essentials have hardlyshown any sign of coming down.
True, the government has taken different measures like importing food grains, open market sales (OMS), fair price cards, safety net programmes and so on to control essentials prices as well as protect the vulnerable sections of the population. But such measures, too, have left little impact on the market.
In the circumstances, rather than using only tough words against unprincipled traders and market manipulators, the government should apply the anti-hoarding law as well as other strict legal measures on the ground.
Is this market mafia so powerful that they can defy the government, especially its law enforcing agencies, with such impunity? Strangely, they have managed to survive the successive governments unscathed. What is the source of their strength, one wonders?
The government needs to strike the market manipulators and syndicates at their roots. It is not unlikely that a nexus has developed between these syndicates and certain shady quarters within the government. And that this nexus provides the market manipulators with an apparent invincibility so much so that they are able to escape the law without any difficulty.
But these unscrupulous wheeler-dealers distorting the market should be ferreted out from their safe dens and held to account. And it is time the government demonstrated its will to bust the nexus through matching its words with action and freed the people from the tyranny of syndicates.
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