Consumer watchdog slams recent commodity price hike
shahennews
The Consumer Protection Society (CPS) on Sunday described a recent hike in the prices of some basic commodities as “insane” and said the rise in the local market does not reflect the real increase in global prices.
Among the commodities that saw their prices soar over the past few days in the local market are sugar, rice, vegetable oils and imported chilled red meat, according to the society which added that the prices some of these foodstuffs jumped by more than 40 percent.
In a statement, the CPS slammed “the absence” of supervisory bodies, saying that the rise in commodity prices on global price indexes does not explain the prices at which these commodities are now sold in the local market.
President of the society Muhammad Obeidat said that the recent hikes in basic commodity prices are “a clear violation” of King Abdullah II’s directives on making Jordan a strategic center for regional food security.
Obeidat added that achieving this goal calls for providing safe food for Jordanian families, in sufficient quantities, and at prices commensurate with their purchasing power which has been hit due to the difficult economic conditions that the whole world has been going through.
He called on authorities to list the commodities whose prices have risen in international markets and to explain the value of fees and taxes imposed on them, in order to know the fair prices that are supposed to be sold at.
If prices remain high, the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Supply must set fair price ceilings for these basic foodstuffs, similar to the price it set for chicken, Obeidat emphasized.
“It is unacceptable for one kilo of imported chilled lamb to be sold for JD8, or for imported veal to be sold between JD6 and JD8 during these exceptional circumstances imposed by the pandemic,” Obeidat said, calling for fair pricing of meats “far from the desires of the monopolists who control prices”.
He stated that exporting large quantities of live sheep to some neighboring countries, and leaving the local market almost empty of live sheep was a “mistake” that gave some traders an opportunity to control prices according to their desires.
He added that some merchants “tamper” with the volumes and packages of foodstuffs, such as rice, sugar, oils, and legumes, and some types of cleaning and sanitary materials, by reducing the size of the package, and then selling them at the same old price, and sometimes at higher prices, under the pretext that their prices or the prices of raw materials have risen globally.
//Petra//
