Prices Are Still Expensive And Rare, PKS Legislator Proposes The Establishment Of Palm Cooking Oil BUMN

JAKARTA - Member of Commission VII DPR from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) faction, Mulyanto, proposed the establishment of a State-Owned Enterprise (BUMN) for palm cooking oil as an effort to resolve the scarcity and high price of cooking oil.

Mulyanto emphasized that the government needs to make a radical breakthrough so that the problem can be resolved immediately and not repeated in the future.

Moreover, it has been one month since the newest bulk palm cooking oil (MGS) was enacted, but this commodity is still scarce and the price is still above the HET.

"We don't know how long the bulk MGS price will reach HET," said Mulyanto to reporters, Monday, April 18.

For information, even though it has been one month the HET MGS in bulk is Rp. 14,000 per liter or Rp. 15,500 per kg. But to this day the price has not come down.

However, based on data from the National Strategic Food Price Information Center, as of April 16, bulk MGS is still perched at Rp. 20,000 per kg, while the price of packaged MGS is Rp. 26,600 per kg.

The PKS Legislator for the Banten Dapil said the government had changed policies, from a trade approach to an industrial approach in the past month.

The trade approach is carried out through a domestic market obligation (DMO) subsidy for CPO and its derivatives at a domestic price obligation (DPO) price. Meanwhile, the industrial approach is carried out through MGS subsidies via palm oil funds.

However, as a result, said Mulyanto, the government still cannot control the price of MGS according to the HET. This is because the producers and distributors of MGS are oligopolistic.

"They have sufficient power to regulate production and price formation. Meanwhile compliance with existing regulations, both on the production side and on the distribution side is very worrying," he said.

On the other hand, added Mulyanto, one of the obstacles to the formation of BUMN MGS is the limited land area for BUMN's palm oil, which is only 4 percent. In detail, the large private sector controls 55 percent of the land for oil palm plantations, while community ownership is only 41 percent.

"If a regulation can be formulated to optimize people's plantations by BUMN MGS, then the land consolidation can reach 45 percent. This is a large enough number to balance the domination of the private sector," concluded Mulyanto.