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Onion Price Manipulation

Authorities detect 18 culprits in Ctg

Importers, C&F agents, warehouse owners and commission agents among them

Dwai payan Barua, Ctg
Chattogram district administration has identified 18 market players allegedly responsible for manipulating the prices of onions imported from Myanmar, as well as for selling those in black market.
The manipulators include importers, clearing and forwarding agents, warehouse owners and commission agents, officials said.
The soaring onion price following a ban on onion export by India in September, prompted many businesses to import the spice from Myanmar. But the prices kept soaring.
Officials sat in a series of meetings with the traders and conducted several mobile court drives in different markets in the city in last two months, but failed to control the price.
Warehouse owners and commission agents at Khatunganj, one of the biggest wholesale markets in the city, said they were held hostage by importers who actually fix the rates.
According to the administration, though the average import price of onion from Myanmar was Tk 42 per kg, the wholesale price of onion was between Tk 90 and Tk 110 per kg throughout the last month at Khatunganj.
To rein in the prices, the administration with support from the commerce ministry, conducted further mobile court drives in wholesale markets of Chattogram city in the last 4 days. The ministry sent its Deputy Secretary Selim Hossain to monitor the situation.
During the first two days of the drives, the mobile court interrogated Khatunganj based wholesalers and warehouse owners, and collected a list of 15 market players in Chattogram city and Teknaf upazila, responsible for onion price manipulation through different kinds of fraudulence.
As per the list, the same court raided the port city's Reazuddin Bazar for detaining three onion importers A
Hossain Brothers, JS Traders and Ms. Sourav Enterprise, on Tuesday.
The court found that the first two businesses were trading imported cosmetics in the market, while the last business was found closed on that day.
Executive Magistrate Towhidul Islam, who led the drive, told Ute Daily Star that at first the firm owners denied involvement in importing and trading onion, but later admitted after the officials found documents proving that they sold onion to a Khatunganj based warehouse, in the shops.
They confessed to importing onion from Myanmar, hoarding and selling those at Khatunganj in October, said Towhidul.
The firms each sold 63 tonnes and 103 tonnes of onion to a Shah Amanat Traders on November 2, he said, adding that none of them could show any documents related to the import of the goods.
The firm owners admitted that they had imported the products through black market, and a Teknaf based C&F agents fixed the rate, he said.
The court awarded each of them with 15 days in prison under the Essential Commodity Act 1956 for not having proper documents.
The awardee gave the rest three names of Teknaf based businesses involved in the market manipulation.
Yesterday the administration fixed the wholesale price of Myanmar1 s onion at Tk 85 per kg. The officials declared to continue drives to monitor the markets.
The traders at Khatunganj, however, said it would be difficult for them to sell onion at this price since onion were already being sold for Tk 85 per kg in Myanmar for the last four weeks.
Meanwhile, Idris Alam, general secretary of Hamidullah Mia Market Traders Association in Khatunganj, said the price of Myanmar's onion would drop significantly in a few days if the market manipulation can be checked.