Editorial
Price hike before Ramadan
Intensify monitoring to ensure fair price
That a racket of hoarders and retailers push up prices of certain food items before and during the month of Ramadan is not new for the consumers in Bangladesh. What is really new, however, is that the commerce minister himself admitted to this despicable trend a few days back. And we felt relieved when he warned all profit-mongers involved with the racket of "stern action" and also assured us of having sent "14 teams to different markets to identify them" while replying to a lawmaker's query in the parliament on July 2. But in less than a week, we are dismayed to see a continuous increase of prices of onions, gram and lentils with the government apparently unable to do anything against the market manipulators.
Unscrupulous hoarders and retailers are coming up with the excuse of the recent flood in the country's southern region as reason behind the hike, which flies in the face of available data confirmed by the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) and Bangladesh Tariff Commission (BTC). Data of latest imports shows that the current stock of onions and gram could meet the increased demand during Ramadan and, therefore, any arbitrary price hike other than the ones fixed by BTC is unjustified, and only for excessive profit-making.
Under the circumstances, we'd like the commerce minister to intensify monitoring of all the markets by employing special teams led by magistrates, and make examples of the racketeers. We think the assurances he gave in the parliament should immediately translate into action.
We also fail to understand why the TCB is operating virtually as a toothless body. In addition to special teams, we think the government would do really well to strengthen the TCB and assign it every year to ensure fair prices at the markets through timely intervention.
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