Needed: Action not rhetoric

Saturday 24th June, 2023

Trade Minister Nalin Fernando has undertaken to ensure that all traders display price lists. There are already laws to this effect, and the question is why successive governments have not cared to enforce them properly. The Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) must be made to explain why price lists are not displayed at most business places, especially eateries.

There is a widely-held misconception that politicians are the only problem this country is beset with, and if they are brought to account, hey presto, all its problems will go away. They are no doubt a curse, but there are many others who are equally vile and have to be severely dealt with if the interests of the public are to prevail.

The business community, which pontificates to the political authority about good governance, etc., is full of unscrupulous elements bent on exploiting the public. Curiously, they are carrying out their sordid operations without any resistance from their victims, who go so far as to carry out arson attacks in settling scores with politicians! Among these predatory individuals are bakers, traders and rice millers. The public is without any defence against the ruthless exploiters, who have become a law unto themselves thanks to their political connections and the power of wealth. They are no respecters of the state institutions tasked with safeguarding the interests of consumers and do not give a tinker’s cuss about consumer protection laws or government directives.

Successive Trade Ministers have warned errant traders and bakers against exploiting the public, but in vain. Minister Fernando has been berating the traders’ Mafia and taken some action to tame it. He resorted to egg imports to prevent wholesalers from keeping egg prices high by creating shortages, and bring down the prices of bakery products. But egg prices have not come down at all. Traders continue to sell eggs at Rs. 55 each, and bakers have not reduced the prices of their products although the government makes imported eggs available to them at Rs. 35 each. They have the best of both worlds.

Consumers and the associations representing their interests complain that the All Ceylon Bakery Owners’ Association has not honoured its promise to reduce the prices of bread, etc., by Rs. 10, and bakers short-weight their products with impunity. Some considerate bakers have slashed the prices of bread and other products of their own volition, and sell a loaf of bread at Rs. 100. The question is why others cannot be made to do so because the prices of wheat flour fuel and cooking gas, etc., have decreased.

Now that Trade Minister Fernando has talked the talk, he should walk the walk. He ought to ensure that the CAA enforces the consumer protection laws strictly and steps up raids to nab errant bakers who sell underweight bread at unreasonably high prices, and traders who make a killing at the expense of consumers. Mere warnings and rhetoric won’t do; they have to be matched with stringent action. The failure of the Trade Ministry and the CAA to deal with exploitative businesses appropriately is one of the main reasons why a decline in inflation is not reflected in the prices of essential commodities, especially food items.