Wow! Indonesia Discussed By Foreign Media: Largest Palm Oil Producer In The World But Rare With Cooking Oil, Fadli Zon's Comments Shockingly

JAKARTA - Gerindra Party politician Fadli Zon said the scarcity of cooking oil in Indonesia has become the focus of international media.

Ironically, the foreign media discussed that Indonesia was experiencing a cooking oil crisis in the midst of being dubbed as the largest producer and exporter of palm oil in the world. Fadli said that such a situation could be interpreted as radical.

"It has become international news. The largest palm oil producer in the world is experiencing a cooking oil crisis. Radical," he said via his Twitter account @fadlizon, quoted Monday, April 4.

One of them who discussed it was the UK-based media, The Economist. In his long article, The Economist describes the scarcity of cooking oil that has forced people from Central Java to oil palm granaries in West Kalimantan to have to stand in long lines to get cooking oil.

The government through the Minister of Trade (Mendag) Muhammad Lutfi has taken a number of steps to resolve the cooking oil crisis that has occurred since the end of 2021.

In addition to checking supplies to the field, the Trade Minister leveled the selling price of cooking oil, held market operations, and invited the National Police to inspect cooking oil factories. However, until now the supply and price of cooking oil is still causing problems for the community.

Recently, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) announced that the government would provide direct cash assistance (BLT) for cooking oil worth IDR 100,000 per month. The donation was made because the price of cooking oil was high due to the spike in palm oil prices. "To ease the burden on the people, the government will provide cooking oil BLT," Jokowi said in a video caption that was shown on the Presidential Secretariat's YouTube, Friday, April 1.

Jokowi said this cooking oil BLT was given to 20.5 million people who were included in the list of recipients of non-cash food assistance and the family of hope program. In addition, this assistance was also given to 2.4 million street vendors who sell fried foods.

However, the assistance will be given three months at a time so that the community will receive IDR 300 thousand. The money, continued Jokowi, will be given starting this month, April to June.