Jakarta –
The Ombudsman of the Republic of Indonesia (ORI) stated that the shortage of goods was the main problem for cooking oil at this time. The search results of the Ombudsman for cooking oil are currently difficult to find everywhere, both in the market and in retail.
Then, why cooking oil can be scarce?
According to Ombudsman Member Yeka Hendra Fatika, the problem occurred because the policies adopted by the government in intervening in the cooking oil trade system were not well targeted. The Ombudsman revealed several allegations that made this condition happen.
“The Ombudsman identified the cause of the shortage of cooking oil. This all stems from an effort to find information and is still conjectural,” said Yeka, in a virtual discussion, Tuesday (15/3/2022).
The first is on the application of DMO, aka the fulfillment of CPO stocks for domestic needs in the upstream part. This policy must be carried out by processed palm oil producers who want to export. With this policy, it is hoped that the availability of CPO as raw material for cooking oil will always be available.
According to Yeka, this policy is not right on target. The reason is, this policy is not followed by a link and match alias alignment between DMO stocks belonging to exporters with the needs of cooking oil producers. Many cooking oil producers do not get their share of cheap CPO stocks.
CPO stock obtained from DMO is cheaper than CPO stock in the market. The reason is that the government also makes a DPO policy, aka local price adjustments for DMO stocks from exporters.
“Not all cooking oil producers get CPO prices with DPO prices from DMO stocks. If they are not paired, they will get a higher CPO price according to the market price,” Yeka said.
If the CPO obtained is more expensive, the production price will be higher, in the end the goods produced will be expensive. Cooking oil producers are suspected of reducing production if they do not get cheap CPO stocks.
“If that’s the case, we suspect that the cooking oil production capacity will decline. To avoid losses, the cooking oil stock will end up decreasing,” said Yeka.
Continue on the next page.
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