KARACHI, Aug 4: The city government officials, who have been invested with special magisterial powers to control prices, are yet to come in action although traders have already started increasing the rates of essential items ahead of Ramazan.
The Sindh government had delegated powers of first class magistrates in July last to the DCO, EDO Revenue, DDO Revenue and Mukhtiarkars. Assistant Mukhtiarkars had been granted powers of second class magistrates. However, the officials have not initiated any campaign against profiteers so far.
Before getting the powers, the city government had been clamouring that the officials could not make a big difference in regard to controlling prices in the absence of magisterial powers. Now when they have got the powers, they appeared lethargic in even making their presence felt in markets to keep a check on profiteers.
In case the city government machinery failed to check the growing trend of price-hike at this stage, traders may become in a strong position to dictate their terms to the city government at the meetings which are held in Sha’aban to ensure that wholesalers and retailers will not resort to profiteering in Ramazan.Consumers have already been made to accept perpetual increase in the prices of kitchen items, including onion, potato, gram pulse, sugar, flour varieties, bread, milk and yogurt, beef, mutton, etc., as the stakeholders of these items have been taking full advantage of the repeated increase in the POL prices over the last several months. Using this as a pretext, they have arbitrarily raised the rates of almost all commodities in the absence of any mechanism and activity to monitor and check profiteering.
In 2005, the city government had recovered Rs2.4 million as fine from 4,300 profiteers found violating the official price list in the holy month.
As many as 65 officials with magisterial powers were mobilised in the price control campaign. A majority of these 4,300 traders appeared to be sellers of fruits, vegetables, milk, meat and kiryana items.
One of the main reasons behind the city government’s failure in controlling prices is the lack of dedication on the part of the empowered officials. It had been noticed that these officials would show much enthusiasm in discharging their special duty in the first quarter of the holy month but lose both the enthusiasm and interest with the passage of time. In the last week of Ramazan, they would not even pay a visit to a market. Even the police officials providing them escort in the campaign would disappear.
Another reason is the lack of any effort in collecting data regarding the stocks of essential items available in markets, input through local sources and imports, crop situation and price trend in the world market. If the city government could manage to collect the data, it could become in a batter position than the traders while negotiating a price control list.
The strength of the team with magisterial powers, i.e. 65, is also not satisfactory as such a small number of people can simply not control prices in a mega city of 1.4 million people where each and every locality has its own markets and bazaars.
It was observed last year, that the city government had set up complaint centres in all 18 towns with only one or two officials having been assigned the task of monitoring a large number of markets. It was often noticed that these officials would leave their place of duty in the afternoon although in Ramazan, most people visit markets and bazaars usually in the evening.
It is also ridiculous that a price list for Ramazan is finalised in the second half of the holy month and this practically makes the whole exercise of controlling prices meaningless as profiteers would already have fleeced people by then.
It is imperative that a complete and final list of official prices for Ramazan is issued one month before the advent of the holy month.
Unfortunately, the representative bodies working to protect consumers’ interests are not active in the city.
Over the past few months, prices of nearly all items of daily use have recorded a sharp increase but in the absence of any resistance on the part of consumers’ rights organisation, people had to surrender to the profiteers every time the prices were raised.
