Chaos, On Empty Shelves, In Warehouses In Fact A Lot! Subsidized Cooking Oil Searched For By Mothers Hoarded In 2 Indomaret Pringsewu

Cooking oil Rp. 14,000 sold out at one of the Indomaret. (Mary Handayani/VOI)

JAKARTA - The government's efforts to stabilize cooking oil prices seem to have been tarnished by the actions of irresponsible people. It was reported that subsidized cooking oil was stockpiled in Pringsewu District, Pringsewu Regency, Lampung Province.

During a surprise inspection (sidak) led by members of the local Regional House of Representatives (DPRD) together with Satpol PP, it was found that modern retail outlets in the area had an unreasonable stock of subsidized cooking oil.

From the information gathered by the editors, at least two modern retailers with the Indomaret trademark are suspected of hoarding. Meanwhile, the location of the outlet is in the Pringsewu Bamboo Monument area and next to Mitra Husada Hospital.

"We checked that the subsidized cooking oil shelf was empty, but when we looked inside (the warehouse) there were tens of liters in that place," said Pringsewu DPRD Commission II Chairman Maulana Lahudin as quoted on Tuesday, February 15.

According to Maulana, indications of fraud committed by these individuals can be seen clearly from his behavior when officers try to search retail outlets.

"Employees at that place ran and tried to hide this subsidized cooking oil," he said.

From the confession of the Indomaret employee, information was obtained if he received a shipment of seven cartons of subsidized cooking oil. Ironically, the retail food vendors located in the outlets admitted that they had never been able to buy the cooking oil in question.

Meanwhile, for the second outlet, a total of 24 liters of subsidized cooking oil were found which were then directly sold to people in need. However, the officers have pocketed some evidence and have now been secured at the Satpol PP office.

In order to obtain comprehensive information, VOI then tried to contact PT Indomarco Prismatama as the parent entity that oversees Indomaret. However, until this news was revealed, the franchise outlet had not provided any information.