Rice Prices Soar, Minister Of Home Affairs Asks Local Governments To Control Inflation

Minister of Home Affairs (Mendagri) Tito Karnavian. (doc the Ministry of Home Affairs)

JAKARTA - Minister of Home Affairs (Mendagri) Tito Karnavian asked local governments (Pemda) to take steps to control inflation. Mainly for rice commodities that experienced price increases in the fourth week of August 2023.

"Cash is an important commodity that needs to be maintained, especially since many areas have started to experience drought due to the impact of El Nino," Tito said in a written statement, Monday, August 28, which was confiscated by Antara.

He also explained other conditions at the international level where the policy of holding rice had begun.

India does not export rice aimed at domestic interests. The same is also applied in Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Vietnam.

Several countries have even adopted a relatively cheaper medium-class rice policy to be used for domestic consumption, while more expensive premium rice is sold abroad.

"The strategy is like that, so we buy premiums, but we want to subsidize our people, now it's a hassle," he said.

Meanwhile, President Joko Widodo has ordered Bulog to maintain and strengthen rice reserves, especially at the peak of El Nino from August to September. Not only that, Jokowi targets the government to have a safe rice stock of approximately 2 million tons from October to December.

Bulog, which is indeed assigned by the president as a food stabilizer, especially rice. Earlier, if we looked at his important notes that it was almost the same, confirming from BPS data, rice prices have started to rise and rise because of the lack of supply. Supply comes from two, domestic and abroad," he said.

According to Tito, Bulog has intervened with existing stocks by carrying out low-cost market movements and distributing government rice reserves. Including distributing stocks, especially to deficit areas, with data from each area that has been collected.

"Is stock per day and stock until the end of the year about safe for rice? Relatively it is estimated that it is safe, we pray because this is also still struggling. Especially absorbing from within the country and where all countries fight to prepare rice for their respective citizens," said Tito.

Another thing that the Minister of Home Affairs emphasized was the distribution of rice. His party asked for help from law enforcement and supervisors from the TNI/Polri, including the National Food Agency (Bapanas) regarding distribution issues.

He warned that rice supplies would not run low, but at the distributor level they would even detain them so that the distribution chain would become jammed.

"It's quite a long chain, don't let it run smoothly, hold it, hoard it, and then the price goes up, this could happen, we need to monitor this together," he concluded.