While essential commodity prices have been on a rollercoaster ride for the past two years, a surprising twist has emerged: the government has drastically scaled back market monitoring -- leaving consumers vulnerable to price manipulators.
In the financial year 2022-23 (July 2022-June 2023), only 408 market drives were conducted, marking a 46 per cent drop compared to the 759 drives carried out in the previous year, according to the government's annual performance agreement (APA) documents.
The Annual Performance Agreement (APA) system was introduced in 2014-15 to promote efficiency and transparency for all public offices. The APA system is also meant to assess and incentivise public agencies to achieve specific targets.
Adding fuel to the fire, the government has further slashed the market drive target for the current financial year (FY24) to a mere 250 -- a significant reduction from the annual target of 720 drives over the past three years.
Professor Gazi M A Jalil, a commodity and value chain expert at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, expressed alarm at the situation.
"Prices of essential items like wheat flour, eggs, chicken, sugar and vegetables have frequently broken the previous records to write new ones," he said, blaming a slack market monitoring by the authorities.
Onion prices soared illogically above Tk200 per kilogram just days ago, Professor Jalil said, citing an excuse of an Indian export ban despite it being peak seed onion harvesting season in Bangladesh.
He said that potato prices shot up to Tk65-70, while sugar reached Tk150-170 per kilogram this year, significantly exceeding the government's fixed prices.
Egg prices experienced volatility twice, first in August 2022 and again in August 2023, when a dozen eggs reached Tk165-180.
Atta and maida prices hit an all-time high in the first quarter of FY23, with atta retailing at a maximum of Tk75 per kilogram, marking a nearly 100 per cent increase, Professor Jalil said.
Despite a notable drop in the global wheat price, flour prices have started to surge again, primarily due to limited government intervention in the market, he added.
Ghulam Rahman, president of the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB), expressed concern that "despite the persistent unpredictable market trend, primarily caused by manipulation by a vested group of traders, the government reduced its monitoring."
"It is puzzling why the government reduced its market drives when it should have doubled them," Rahman said.
He suggested two possible reasons: either the government believes there is no need for increased vigilance due to a perceived normal market situation, or the commerce ministry and other relevant agencies face manpower constraints.
He further noted that the Directorate of National Consumers Right Protection lacks sufficient manpower in one-third of the districts.
CAB proposed increasing both manpower and market monitoring to control the highly volatile local market and provide some relief to consumers.
Despite repeated phone calls, The Financial Express could not obtain comments from Senior Commerce Secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh, Additional Secretary Md Ruhul Amin or consumers right directorate Director General AHM Shafiquzzaman.
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