Taming inflation is top priority

FE Team | Published: January 15, 2024 20:26:59

At a time when the government is in transition, the business syndicates have found an opportune moment to shift gears for a sharp price acceleration of the key commodities. The gear change, moreover, suits them best at this juncture although the general consumers, already reeling from sustained high inflation, are likely to be further overwhelmed by the still higher price shock. That the market is controlled for artificial price increase of essentials by traders, wholesalers or business sharks and the players down the supply line is an open secret. Neither farmers known as primary producers of agricultural commodities nor consumers can expect to enjoy any benefit they are entitled to. The operators in between the two make the most of an unregulated market. Right now in this peak period of a large variety of vegetables, the same is happening. Prices of veggies have dropped at the growers' level but city people are still subjected to unrelenting fleecing.
For quite some time market of the staple rice remained stable, albeit at a level higher than the rationally pricing limit, but to everyone's surprise at this peak harvesting monsoon it has become abnormally jittery. Price of all varieties of rice in the city market has registered a hike of Tk 5.0-7.0 a kilogram overnight. Only a week ago coarse flour (ata) price also leapfrogged by Tk 10 ten a kilo. To go by a report carried in the FE on Sunday last, four key essentials have registered abnormal price gains in defiance of reason and market theories. Rice, seasonal vegetables, potato and onion head the list of other less essential commodities in the soaring price index. In the past there were targeted price hikes of certain essentials. Now excuses are aplenty against the backdrop of the Russia-Ukraine war for hiking prices of all kinds of commodities with particular focus on food items without which life is impossible.
Right now the excuse of supply crunch is irrelevant because there is no dearth of either of the four essentials under review. But this is not the first time that business coteries have held the consumers and the government hostage to their machinations. At a time when food price the world over eased off, the consumers in this country were arm-twisted to cough up more than they would have normally paid for commodities. This time the ploy might be to test the new government before it settles down. Once pushed up, prices can seldom be brought down to their earlier levels. So before Ramadan when some essentials are in high demand, this outrageous manipulation of market is geared to serve business interests.
One of the top, if not the number one, agenda before the new government is to tame the galloping inflation. Now the sections of dishonest business might be tempted to use the Red Sea crisis as an excuse for raising prices of essentials. If the government cannot persuade business interests within its political fold to restrain profit-making at the outset of its tenure, things will go out of control. Let it prove it is up to the task, if not for anything else at least for its better acceptance to the people and also in the interest of the economy and socio-economic justice. Laissez faire dispensation on the economic front can wait until businesses mend their ways.