Asking The Minister Of Work Not To Campaign, Jokowi: I Assign The Minister Of Trade To Lower Cooking Oil Prices

Minister of Trade, Zulkifli Hasan at Ciracas Market, (Photo via Ministry of Trade)

JAKARTA - Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan or Zulhas was caught on video distributing free cooking oil and asking his daughter, Futri Zulya Savitri to be elected during the general election. This incident was crowded on social media and got the attention of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi).

To his ministers, Jokowi advised all his ministers to focus on work. He conveyed this after handing over social assistance at Sukamandi Market, Subang Regency, Tuesday, July 12.

"I ask all ministers to focus on work", Jokowi said as quoted in his written statement.

In particular, the Minister of Trade, Zulkifli Hasan, Jokowi has asked to take care of the cooking oil problem. He hopes these commodities can be suppressed.

"If the Minister of Trade takes care of the most important thing, as I was tasked with yesterday, how to lower the price of cooking oil", said the former Governor of DKI Jakarta while reminding Zulhas to keep going to the market.

Jokowi confirmed that he would also continue to check prices in the market. He wants bulk cooking oil to be in the range of IDR 14 thousand or below.

"Because I also check the cooking oil, the main thing we check is bulk oil, don't ever run to premium packaged oil", he said.

From the results of these checks, the price of bulk oil is already at that number. However, outside Java, the price is still high.

So, Jokowi ordered the Trade Minister to sort out the problem. "If outside Java there are still more than IDR 14 thousand, we will solve them one by one", he said.

Furthermore, Jokowi also reminded other ministers to focus on energy and food issues. Do not let Indonesia slip in these two areas.

"Everyone must focus on work, especially those related to energy and food, this is important. I continue to take care of matters related to fuel, issues related to energy, such as coal, all because the world is disrupted in energy and food, so we must concentrate and not let we are slipping in these two areas", said Jokowi.

In a video that went viral on social media, Zulhas, and his daughter, Futri were present at an event. He then interacted with the women who were present asking for the cheap cooking oil program, Oilita.

He asked what the price of the oil was, which was then answered at IDR 10,000. Zulhas then asked the women to keep the money because their children would pay for the two liters of cooking oil.

"But choose Futri later, okay. If you choose Futri, there will be something like this in two months", he said in the video, greeted by the enthusiasm of the mothers present.