KARACHI: City govt fails to fix prices for Ramazan
By Aamir Shafaat Khan
KARACHI, Aug 26: With Ramazan only a month away and prices of essential items have already showing upward trend, the city government has not called upon any pre-Ramazan meeting with the stakeholders yet to fix the prices of essential items for the holy month.
The General Secretary of Karachi Retail Grocers Group, Farid Qureishi, and Adviser to Karachi Wholesale Grocers Association, Anis Majeed, said that they have not received any call from the city government officials regarding the holding of pre-Ramazan meeting.
Last year, the enterprise and investment promotion department of the city government had called the retailers and wholesalers just 15 days before the holy month. “I have been urging the city government that the prices of kitchen items should be fixed for two months, including one month ahead of Ramazan so that prices could remain stable. But it has not happened,” Farid Qureishi said.
He said that the authorities take the stock of situation just a few days ahead of Ramazan by holding meeting with the stakeholders and finalise the prices on an urgent basis.
It may be noted here that the prices of essential items have been on the rise since March. It will again be too late for the city government to hold the meeting with stakeholders for fixing the rate below the prevailing rate. By that time the market players may further enhance the prices.
Some manufacturers and traders will offer a reduction of one or two rupees per kg on essential items while others will flatly refuse.
Like last years, the price regulators will again be bound to follow the dictation of stakeholders in fixing the prices on their terms as the authorities are not well-equipped to monitor the data on import of commodities, local production, demand and supply gap, stock situation etc., which could help them have an upper hand in fixing prices.
Traders are already on the rampage. For example, in March this year, milk price had been increased to Rs30 from Rs28 a litre and the city government appeared helpless despite issuing a notification in the third week of April for fixing the rate at Rs28 per litre. So far no action has been taken against the dairy farmers and retailers who now mull for another increase over the rising cost of feed ingredients and higher transportation cost.
In June, beef (with bones) prices surged to Rs140 per kg from Rs130 in May while retailers are charging Rs170 per kg (without bones) as compared to Rs160 per kg. Mutton is selling at Rs260-270 as compared to Rs240-250.
In April and May, leading tea packers increased the prices by seven to eight per cent owing to price increase in Kenya from where half of the country’s requirement is met through imports. The increase in price of tea was caused by drought in Kenya.
Prices of various pulses had been under pressure for the last few months because of costlier imports and very low local production.
Because of increase in wheat prices, bread makers increased the prices in July. Makers of 16 kg ghee and cooking oil tins had increased the rates to Rs900 from Rs800 a month back.
On July 1, poultry live bird was available at Rs74 per kg. However, the decision of allowing one dish meal had proved a boon for poultry farmers who had further increased the prices by Rs4 per kg after the decision to raise the rate from Rs90 to Rs96 per kg in just four days. Its meat prices had surged to over Rs170 from Rs166 per kg.
As the time is running out, a strong arm of the city government – enterprise and investment promotion, group of offices, which had been holding meetings with stakeholders and fixing the prices of items for the last many years, appears unhappy over the snatching of powers for monitoring and controlling the prices.
In the current Finance Bill 2006, the government had revived the administrative magistracy and had subsequently assigned the price fixation, monitoring and control of essential commodities at various levels of the provincial and district administrations.
The notification issued in this regard had declared secretary industries, director industries and DCO’s of all the districts as controllers general of prices and supplies and thereafter vide notification on July 10, the magisterial powers are conferred upon the DCO, EDO (Revenue), DDO (Revenue), Mukhtarkars as magistrates first class and assistant mukhtarkars as magistrates second class.
In a letter to Karachi Nazim Mustafa Kamal, E&IP stated that from the very outset of this setup it transpired that the government had assigned the duties of controller general of prices and supplies to DCO and the magisterial arm of the administration for its implementation had been assigned to the revenue group of offices.
“This system has totally debarred E&IP to act or at least fit in the activity of price control of essential items and its implementation,” the enterprise and investment promotion said.
The E&IP stated that given regulatory position, it would be difficult for this group of offices to act as the government body to fix, monitor and control the prices of essential commodities.
In order to strengthen and rationalise its working, the E&IP urged the nazim that the enterprise and investment promotion should be declared as controller general of prices in the city government by omitting director industries who has no role to play in the this field.
One revenue qualified district officer and three deputy district officers with magisterial powers may be posted in the E&IP group of offices to coordinate and oversee the fixation, monitoring and control of prices together with the officers of revenue group of offices who are assigned the magisterial powers.
It may be noted here that the city government officials, who have been invested with magisterial powers in July to control prices, are yet to come in action. There is a lot of hue and cry among the consumers and market watchers for activation of these magistrates against price hike at a time when Ramazan is just four to five weeks away.
