DPR Suspects Expensive Rice and Sugar Prices Mafia Effect, This is What the Deputy Minister of Trade Says News – 13 minutes ago

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Prices of a number of basic food commodities have been observed to be rising, such as rice and sugar. This was a question from members of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR) Commission VI and they suspected that the increase in food prices was partly caused by the food mafia.

However, Deputy Minister of Trade Jerry Sambuaga confirmed that the increase in food prices was not caused by the food mafia. Currently, his party continues to focus on the availability of food supplies so that food prices remain stable in society.

“No, it was explained in the meeting, basically our priority is consumer protection,” said Jerry at the DPR Building, Tuesday (12/9/2023).

Jerry said that the Ministry of Trade had also visited markets directly to ensure that the food supply was safe to meet people’s needs. However, no spike in food prices was found.

“I checked the market and the price was stable, then checked it was safe, hopefully this can continue to be maintained,” he said.

For information, the question regarding the food mafia was submitted by Commission VI member Darmadi Durianto. Because, he still often hears allegations of the existence of a food mafia, especially in imported commodities such as refined sugar, garlic and rice which causes price spikes in the community.

“A lot of people are talking about why refined sugar and rice are expensive,” he said.

Apart from that, Darmadi further stated that the alleged indications of the existence of a food mafia need to be investigated. Because eradicating the food import mafia is important because it will affect domestic prices.

Darmadi gave an example, which is considered to be imports of garlic that are not yet transparent. The price of garlic, which tends to still be expensive, up to IDR 38,000 per kilogram, is a big question. In fact, said Darmadi, the capital for importing garlic is only around IDR 16,000 per kilogram.

“Garlic, if you check below, is it true that quotas are given?” he added.

“How is that, sir? How much profit, sir? It’s like a monopoly, the garlic traders under Mr. Teten are all screaming, so please really pay attention to this,” he concluded.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(dce)