Taskforce to check commodity market manipulation soon

The government is going to form a taskforce to check manipulation in essential commodity markets within the next one or two days, Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi has said.

"We will be in the field with the taskforce so that no trader can make money illegally in the name of price hike or supply shortage," he told the media after an emergency meeting at the Secretariat in the capital on Sunday.

No one would be allowed to hoard daily essential items, he said, adding that they would conduct drives every day.

At the event, Cabinet Division Secretary Khandaker Anwarul Islam said the government (National Board of Revenue) would issue a statutory regulatory order (SRO) on Monday to cut different types of taxes, including value-added tax, on daily essentials.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, Agricultural Minister Abdur Razzak, Land Minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, and State Minister for the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid were present at the meeting.

Tipu Munshi said the government would provide essential items – onion, edible oil, lentil, sugar, dates and chickpeas – at subsidised prices to one crore people across the country and 15 lakh in Dhaka City during the month of Ramadan.

"We earlier planned to provide the items to some 50 lakh people. Meanwhile, the prime minister directed us to increase the number of beneficiaries to 1 crore," the minister added.

On soaring prices of daily essentials, Tipu Munshi said it was true that the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war had a bad impact on commodity imports. "However, we are trying to check the price hikes."

Among the others, the local edible oil market saw much instability since late February amid the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war.

The oil traders then proposed the government substantially hike the oil price citing global volatility but were refused. Afterwards, the market saw a shortage in the oil supply, which unusually raised the price.

However, the global edible oil market has been on the rise for the last couple of days.