Ministry Of Trade Names Causes Of Lack Of Cooking Oil Supply Constraints: There Are Hoarders And People Who Buy In Large Quantities

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Trade (Kemendag) stated that the problem in the lack of domestic cooking oil supply occurs in the field or at the level of product distribution to the retail market.

Secretary of the Directorate General of Domestic Trade at the Ministry of Trade IG Ketut Astawa in a discussion on cooking oil organized by the National Consumer Protection Agency (BPKN) said crude palm oil (CPO) producers had complied with the Domestic Market Obligation (DMO) policy by supplying 351 million liters for domestic needs. domestic cooking oil.

"If we look at the data that there is a commitment from CPO producers that has reached 351 million liters for 14 days, our actual needs per month range from 279 to 300 million liters," said Ketut, quoted from Antara, Tuesday, March 1.

He said that with the supply of CPO fulfilled by CPO producers for domestic needs, the domestic market should be flooded with cooking oil products within a month. But what happened was the opposite, namely the availability of cooking oil products in the market, both modern and traditional markets.

He said the Minister of Trade together with his staff and the Food Task Force had taken to the field in recent weeks to unravel the knots of problems that caused the supply of cooking oil to stagnate in the market.

Ketut admitted that there were indeed findings by the Food Task Force that there were individuals who deliberately stockpiled cooking oil products and did not distribute them to the market.

"Therefore, we and our staff are also looking for where the knot is, if anyone has hoarded it. And indeed there are several things, such as the findings of the Food Task Force in North Sumatra, including in Kalimantan, and so on. cities and provinces are carrying out these evaluation steps," he said.

In addition, Ketut also revealed that there are still people who buy cooking oil in larger quantities than their usual needs, causing the availability of products to be running low.

"Our own people also because there is information about the lack of availability of oil, they finally bought it in droves, even one family usually bought it, the next day they bought it, in the afternoon they bought it. So sometimes in one of the modern retail outlets it runs out immediately," he said.

Ketut said all parties must jointly provide socialization to the community so that there is no need to panic buying so that the availability of cooking oil is sufficient.