TDS Desk

The interim government will go tough on syndicates working to keep consumer inflation elevated, as otherwise it would be very difficult to rein in surging prices of daily necessities, employment adviser Asif Mahmud told reporters Tuesday.

The recent devastating floods have contributed to a spike in vegetable prices, but the price hikes in other essential commodity segments can largely be attributed to manipulations by corporate houses and kitchen market traders, he said.

The adviser and student protest leader was speaking at a discussion session organised by the Bangladesh Secretariat Reporters Forum (BSRF) at the media centre of the Secretariat in the capital.

Big food supplying companies and market middlemen have been hiking prices, and to bypass them the government will start incentivising new youth-driven initiatives. A significant number of young entrepreneurs are eager to cut out the middlemen and bring produce before consumers right from the farmland, he noted.

The government has learnt that big corporations, which supply food items to wholesale markets, have been hiking prices to fatten their profit margins.

As the Awami League government intentionally weakened the consumer rights department for winning favours from big companies, the interim government would resort to emergency laws to arrest corporate leaders, he warned.

Once the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection could jail market manipulators, but now it usually imposes fines of maximum Tk5,000, thanks to amended laws, the adviser said.

The government would strengthen the directorate by reforming laws.

Furthermore, traders in kitchen markets have been in touch with “different political parties” to prop up market syndicates. Before, the 5 August ouster of Awami League regime, these traders benefitted from syndicates controlled by Awami League men and their cohorts.

Now, the traders are seeking new political allies.