DIY Police Monitor Availability Of Cooking Oil To Prevent Hoarding

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION VIA ANTARA

YOGYAKARTA - The Yogyakarta Special Region Regional Police are intensifying monitoring of the availability of cooking oil in traditional markets to ensure that there is no hoarding of this commodity.

The Head of Public Relations of the Yogyakarta Regional Police Kombes Yuliyanto said the monitoring was carried out in response to several reports that cooking oil in the market was starting to become scarce.

"For the past few days, the Yogyakarta Regional Police, in this case the Special Criminal Investigation Directorate, has been monitoring markets," he said, quoted by Antara, Saturday, February 19.

In addition to monitoring the stock of cooking oil in the market, the police also conducted inspections at a number of warehouse locations for cooking oil distributors in DIY.

"Initial reports are that the cooking oil stock warehouse is currently empty because there has been no delivery from the center," he said.

Monitoring of cooking oil, said Yuliyanto, will continue to be carried out to involve the police at the district/city level.

If hoarding is found, the DIY Police will take firm action by ensnaring the perpetrators using Article 107 of the 2014 Law on Trade with a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a maximum fine of IDR 50 billion.

"This is for business actors who violate the prohibition on storing basic necessities or important items in a certain amount and time when there is a shortage of goods," he said.

Meanwhile, the Head of Domestic Trade at the DIY Industry and Trade Department Yanto Apriyanto said that this week 250 tons of cooking oil were disbursed by the central government for DIY.

Some supplies have arrived in DIY to be distributed by distributors to traditional market traders and shops at prices below the highest retail price (HET).

"Some of them have already entered and are immediately distributed and some have not yet arrived for cooking oil," he said.

Not only the DIY Regional Police, according to him, the DIY Disperindag has also monitored distributors with echelon 2 employees of the Ministry of Trade.