JAKARTA - House of Representatives Commission VI member Achmad Baidowi spoke loudly with a statement from the Ministry of Trade (Kemendag) which said that people were hoarding cooking oil, making it scarce.
Achmad Baidowi said that the words of the ministry official were considered very hurtful to the public. Even if it is said that people save only two liters of oil, it is because of need, not because they want to stockpile.
"The statement from the Ministry of Trade that the scarcity of cooking oil is caused by residents hoarding it. Of course, this is a very hurtful statement, even an accusation that does not use common sense logic," explained Awiek, Baidowi's nickname, quoted from Parliament as seen by the editors, Friday, March 11 .
The politician from PPP considers this assumption to be very illogical. Because what happens in the field, cooking oil is already scarce and the price is also very high.
"Submitting a statement that is accusatory to the public is the same as throwing away the body, throwing the problem to other people," he said.
Instead of throwing accusations like that, it is better for the Ministry of Trade to clearly explain to the public the cooking oil trade system from upstream to downstream.
"If the Ministry of Trade is unable to regulate the cooking oil trading system, I'm sorry. For example, it cannot control the price due to the actions of speculators, due to the actions of distributors or collectors, or producers," he explained.
Thus, the Deputy Chairman of the Legislation Body (Baleg) of the DPR RI hopes that in the future, the Ministry of Trade will be careful in issuing statements so as not to cause new polemics in the community.
Previously reported, the Inspector General of the Ministry of Trade Didid Noordiatmoko explained that currently cooking oil production is approaching the need so that the shortage of this product should be resolved no later than the end of March 2022.
However, Didid said, a new problem arose which was the impact of rising prices and shortages of goods, namely panic buying. This is because the price of affordable cooking oil makes people buy more than they need.
In fact, said Didid, research results show that the need for cooking oil per person is only 0.8-1 liter per month. So with these results, many households are stocking cooking oil.
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