If You Are Caught Hoarding Oxygen Cylinders, Head Of Jakarta Metro Police: Don't Try To Play

JAKARTA - The police gave an ultimatum to producers and distributors of oxygen cylinders not to take advantage of the situation by hoarding. The police will take action against all parties trying to stockpile oxygen cylinders.

"I am reiterating that we will monitor all of this together, both with producers, distributors, and even all downstream retailers. Our firmness is not to try to play", said the Head of Public Relations of Jakarta Metro Police, Kombes Yusri Yunus, to reporters, Wednesday, June 30.

"If he hoards to take advantage, we will take strict action", continued Yusri.

In addition, Yusri emphasized that the availability of oxygen cylinders during this pandemic is not a trivial problem. Thus, monitoring will continue to be carried out continuously.

"We will continue to monitor this, this is a humanitarian issue because oxygen cylinders are really needed by people who are really sick, especially existing hospitals", he said.

In addition, the Director of Special Criminal Investigation at the Jakarta Metro Police, Kombes Auliyansah Lubis, stated that not only hoarding, but his party will also monitor prices in the market. If later someone is caught playing the selling price, they will immediately take action.

"We have coordinated with producers and then with distributors, they have not raised prices. So if prices go up, it means they are downstream", he said.

Previously, Jakarta Metro Police confirmed that there was no hoarding of oxygen cylinders behind the issue of scarcity in the market. Instead, the scarcity occurred due to increased demand following the increase in positive cases of COVID-19.

"It's just that there is an increase in demand because we know together with some referral hospitals the BOR (bed occupancy rate) for COVID-19 is quite high", said Yusri.

Even though the availability of oxygen cylinders is running low, Yusri continued, producers are still able to provide them for the community. However, for now, priority is given to referral hospitals.

"But until now, the producers are still accepting, this is from a coordination meeting with the existing producers that we have called for us to ask directly", said Yusri.

In addition to the high demand, the scarcity of oxygen cylinders is also due to the high purchasing power per individual. Thus, the existence of oxygen cylinders is rarely on the market.

"But with the current situation, there are quite a lot of requests from individuals, which are currently crowded in shops, because there is a demand for individuals", he said.