Mr. Trade Minister Lutfi, A Traditional Trader In NTT Confesses Cooking Oil Prices From Distributors Are Sold At High Prices

NTT Police officers inspecting the cooking oil warehouse in one of the distributor warehouses in Kupang City. BETWEEN/HO

KUPANG - The sale of cooking oil at one price according to the government program has not been fully implemented in a number of traditional markets and shops in NTT.

This was discovered by the NTT Police while monitoring prices for the past week. This was stated by the Head of Sub-Division of Action for the NTT Police, Kompol Libartino Silaban.

"Since last week we have been monitoring in a number of locations ranging from shops, traditional markets, modern markets, supermarkets, and cooking oil storage warehouses. " explained Libartino in Kupang, Antara, Friday, February 18.

Based on the results of discussions with a number of retail cooking oil traders, both in traditional markets and in a number of shops, it is known that the one-price cooking oil has not been enforced because of the distributor.

"They (traders, ed) admit that distributors sell them at high prices, so retailers cannot sell them according to the HET that has been applied by the government," he said again.

However, according to Libartino, not all distributors apply high prices when selling them to retailers. Some distributors, he said, gave retailers discounted prices but not in the form of money, they were replaced with goods (cooking oil).

"There are still cooking oil distributors in Kupang who have applied prices following the HET, but there are also those who trade at prices that are not in accordance with the HET on the grounds that the factory has not lowered the price of cooking oil," he said.

Furthermore, he also said, from the results of monitoring it was known that the price of premium cooking oil in traditional markets was Rp. 15,000 to Rp. 20,000 per liter.

Meanwhile, in modern markets such as Transmart, Hypemart, Alfamart, the HET price is IDR 14,000 per liter.

He also hopes that cooking oil distributors in NTT, especially in Kupang City, do not take advantage of this momentum to hoard cooking oil and deliberately play up cooking oil prices.

Upon finding the scarcity and high price of cooking oil, the Minister of Trade (Mendag) Muhammad Lutfi issued a stern warning. The Ministry of Trade immediately took firm legal action against the perpetrators who were proven to have hoarded cooking oil.

"I remind you once again that the Ministry of Trade will definitely take the rogue perpetrators of hoarding cooking oil to justice," said Trade Minister Lutfi in a high-pitched tone during a sudden inspection (sidak) simultaneously to a number of areas in Indonesia that are experiencing a shortage of migraines, in Makassar, Thursday 17 February.