Trade Minister Zulhas Warns traders: Don't Hoard The Food

JAKARTA - The Minister of Trade (Mendag) Zulkifli Hasan warned traders not to hoard food during the month of Ramadan. He said the Food Task Force would confiscate the goods.

"Also, I remind business actors not to be arbitrary. The goods are stored first until the goods are expensive. If someone is hoarding things, playing games, piling up goods, the government has a Food Task Force, the goods can be confiscated," he said in Kalibata City, South Jakarta, Tuesday, April 4.

Furthermore, Zulhas, nicknamed Zulkifli Hasan, said that he would also order the Ministry of Trade's Consumer Protection Agency to go down to check availability at major distributors. The goal is to check whether food is stockpiled or not.

"Today I ordered the consumer protection agency to check, check shallots, garlic, rice, I ordered them to check at major distributors. If the price is piled up. It can't be like that," he said.

On a different occasion, Zulhas detailed several food commodities whose prices had increased or decreased. One of them, he said, chili experienced a decrease in price.

"Alhamdulillah the prices are stable, there are indeed those that are going up but the ones that are going up are chilies. Yesterday it went up high but now it has gone down, already IDR 40,000-IDR 50,000, cayenne pepper is still a bit high. But the prices for eggs, chicken, and onions are stable," he said in Kebayoran Baru.

“Yesterday, there was misinformation about garlic. If one or a single seed is expensive, more of that is twice the price. Normally IDR 25,000-IDR 26,000 the price is stable," he continued.

Zulhas said that the current price of rice has decreased, although slightly. Therefore, he said, people can choose Bulog rice if they want to get low prices.

“Rice prices have started to fall a bit, although they are still a bit high, they have stabilized. That's why people who want to buy low-priced rice buy Bulog rice at IDR 9,450 per sack of 5 kg at IDR 47,000," he explained.