Sorry We Can’t Control

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com – Minister of Trade Muhammad Lutfi apologized for not being able to normalize prices cooking oil.

He said that there are mafias who take personal advantage so that various policies carried out by the Ministry of Trade cannot reduce it cooking oil price in the market.

“With apologies, the Ministry of Trade cannot control this because human nature is greedy and evil,” he said during a Working Meeting with DPR Commission VI, Thursday (17/3/2022).

Also read: The Trade Minister Says There Is a Mafia Smuggling Cooking Oil Abroad

The Ministry of Trade admits that it has limited authority in the law to thoroughly investigate the mafia and cooking oil speculators.

Therefore, he asked the National Police’s Food Task Force for assistance to take action against the mafia and cooking oil speculators.

“In the meantime, we have the data and it is being examined by the Food Task Force police, but the situation is very critical due to tensions,” he said.

Trade Minister I believe there is cooking oil mafia because the price of vegetable oil commodities is still not normal after the government implemented the Highest Retail Price (HET) and Domestic Market Obligation (DMO) policies.

According to the Trade Minister, the people’s cooking oil needs should be met every month because of these two policies. But the reality is different. cooking oil price rare and the price does not match the HET.

Also read: Cooking Oil Crisis, YLKI: The Government Should Learn From Melon Gas Subsidy…

The Minister of Trade revealed that on February 14-16 March 2022, the DMO policy could collect 720,612 tons of palm oil from 3.5 million tons of total exports of CPO products and distribute 551,069 tons, or 76.4 percent to the public.

According to data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), normally every Indonesian consumes 1 liter of cooking oil every month.

Therefore, he said, with 551,069 tons of cooking oil, each person should get 2 liters of cooking oil or exceed their monthly consumption.

However, every time he checks in the field, the Minister of Trade finds that there is always no stock of cooking oil. Therefore, the Trade Minister believes that there is a mafia that smuggles the public’s cooking oil supplies to industry or abroad.

“The Ministry of Trade cannot fight these irregularities,” he said.

Also read: Release Cooking Oil Prices to the Market, the Government Loses to Hoarders?

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