No end to artificially triggered market volatility

The first three weeks of August has witnessed the notoriety of a fresh surge in price hike of essentials. There is hardly any vegetable, fish, egg, meat and spice that has not registered an irrational price hike over the past three weeks. The only saving grace is the nation's staple that has not joined the bandwagon. But coarse flour (atta) has become dearer by Tk 5.0-10 a kilogramme (kg). Some of the common and popular vegetables, eggs and broiler meat recorded 20-30 per cent price increase within a week and one particular vegetable has to its credit a hundred per cent price increase. But even this abnormal price escalation has been undermined by the price explosion of whole cumin seed and its powder making it record high in the country's history and also the highest in the world at Tk 1,400-1,600 and Tk 2,200 respectively right now.

What is particularly galling is that such unbridled price hike is bleeding the general consumers at a time when prices are going down globally. Even Sri Lanka which saw its inflation climb to as high as 49.72 per cent in 2022 has managed to tame the galloping horse in a spectacular manner. For the tenth consecutive month, it has brought down inflation to just 6.3 per cent last month. Unsurprisingly, the island nation has repaid $50 million of the $200 million loan it took from Bangladesh in time of its severe economic crisis two years ago. It is likely to pay another instalment of $100 million within this month. It seems a country can tide over critical financial crunch by prudent fiscal management. Both public and private sectors need to find a meeting place of collaboration with each other, keeping the national interest high on the agenda. Unholy business cartels are not allowed to take the people hostage, let alone prosper.

Sadly, it would be gratifying if the same could be said about today's Bangladesh. The country that was born out of a massive bloodbath and immense sacrifice of the people has seen the rise of swindlers and looters of national resources who never stop at accumulating unearned money. A section of business coteries are always on the lookout for chances to fleece the consumers. There is none --- neither the government nor the people ---to challenge the blatant ploys resorted to by business syndicates in hiking prices of essentials beyond rational explanations.

The latest such deplorable manoeuvre involves the sudden increase in onion within hours of India's slapping of 40 per cent duty on the vegetable-cum-spice's export. This comes on the heel of similar price hike in eggs, broiler chicken and a host of other daily necessaries. Although the ministry of fisheries and livestock has set the price of an egg at Tk 12, rational enough if taken into account the cost of production, it is not complied with. Culprits responsible for similar manipulation of egg market in 2022 were detected but not punished. Why? There indeed lies the problem. If punishments were meted out for creating artificial crises of commodities --- like the one clandestinely done earlier in case of cooking oil --- and also for raising prices irrationally, business cartels would have thought twice before repeating the crime.