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ANALYSIS

The taming of the price-horse

Omak Faruqub
Ramadan comes, prices of essentials soar. It is no exception this time also. With the advent of the holy month yesterday, the price-horse started running at a pace that consumers, irrespective of classes in the society, can hardly cope with.
Consumers blame the greed of some unscrupulous traders for the daily necessities being dearer. The defence these traders place on many occasions, even when they meet dif ferent government agencies to make promises to break, is not that logical.
They say the international commodity market is overheated, so is the local one. But life seems hard for countrymen, especially for the toiling masses who belong to the low-income group, because of the struggle they are doing now to keep their body and soul together in the adverse situation stemming from the price spike.
Yesterday's market survey suggests that the prices of essentials like rice, lentil, edible oil and vegetables were far away from the reach of ordinary people, let alone the Ifari (breaking fasting) items. In other words, these items are not at tolerable level, though the term is a relative one.
Meanwhile, the flood has started menacing parts of the country. Reports have it that nine districts are already affected by this natural calamity, anticipating a substantial amount of crop damage. This is also dreadful, for such damage caused by the last year's twin spells of flood and cyclone led to a shortfall of food supply, which also resulted in a record high surge in the price of rice, the staple food that costs over 70 percent of Bangladeshis' income, as a recent research revealed.
According to the survey by the Consumers Association of Bangladesh, commodity prices marked a 28.21 percent rise in a span of just a week, with a few exceptions of price-drop.
But the efforts, from both the private and public, to rein in the market situation are far from adequate.
The government indecision over timely collection of food grains from overseas at a reasonable price, rhetoric instead of proper management, lack of controlling measures on the plea of market economy have made the situation from bad to worse.
Of late, some measures taken the day before Ramadan by the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), the initiator of the Dai-Bhat programme, have created a good impression among the masses. After a recess for some days, it started selling essentials at as many as 100 designated sites in the capital and elsewhere. The happy buyers found that the BDR lowered the prices of rice, lentil, soyabean oil by Tk 2 to Tk 3 each on the first day of Ramadan, a move that should be followed by other government agencies.
In this connection, the Food Directorate’s move to supply food grains for distribution, including through the Open Market Sales, or OMS, at an enhanced rate will help improve a bit the already-volatilc food market situation. But the introduction of a rationing system, as existed for sometime in the postindependence period, would help a lot to serve this purpose.
The leaders of the garment industry, which is in a shadow of violent unrest by workers — too low-paid to live with the increasing price of essentials -- have done a praiseworthy job through the sales of subsidised items for their workers the day Ramadan starts.
However, people say the inadequacy in government measures to tame the price spiral is reflected in a recent statement by a senior official of the commerce ministry who saw no other way than the prevalence of businessmen's good sense.
Merely a good sense will not do, if an effective system of monitoring is not in place. The facts, confined to a series of pre-declared visits to kitchen markets by some dignitaries, suggest that such role of a watchdog should be played in a way that retailers are not spared the vigilance.
Because the retailers have been found influencing the market to a large extent by manipulating prices, even they do it in a single small market.
Consistency in the price levels countrywide could be an ideal situation, which can be ensured by monitoring. The proper execution of the Consumers Rights Protection Ordinance 2008, which now awaits the president's assent after its approval by the Council of Advisers on August 20, can ensure such price level consistency, in addition to the removal of any manipulation of weight, quality and price of any essential commodity.
When an effective monitoring is a shortterm option, other options like setting up a commodity exchange market deserve serious consideration, but a proposal with regard to this market from a Dubai-based organisation is learnt to have remained undecided for long with the commerce ministry.
Experts say such a market would yield positive results for both the growers and consumers of commodities, attracting also foreign direct investment.