Sweeping price hikes….. how much longer!?

Photo credit: Alarabiya.net

It is not clear how closely official state agencies are following markets to correctly monitor the unremitting rise in the cost of living whose excruciating burden is being felt by citizens. Suffering has reached a peak as common citizens find it agonizingly difficult to procure their basic needs in the wake of upward spiraling prices.

Since its adoption, liberal economic policy and the dismantling of official price monitoring agencies have made fixed prices for goods a thing of the past.

The government understood economic liberation to mean leaving citizens easy prey for the whims of markets and capitalist doctrines of competition with no regard to the human cost.

Unfortunately, there is reason to strongly doubt the verity of official figures on inflation rates. This is because the suffering of citizens far exceeds the modest figures given by the government as prices increase almost on a daily basis.

There has been a constant rise in the prices of basic commodities, medicines and life-preserving medical equipment. Though the price hikes are sometimes justified by the drop in the value of the local currency against hard currency, price rises have equally involved local products. Some of these are even ascribed to policies of stockpiling, monopoly and contrived scarcity; all of which practices can be controlled although we do not believe the government possesses the mechanisms for control.

The plight of consumers calls for the following approaches; firstly, there is need for economic measures that seek to maintain the value of the local currency and bridge the exchange rate gap between the official market and the parallel market. This can only be achieved through intensive government efforts to procure hard currency, in the form of loans or aid; otherwise the standing of the national currency will not improve and citizens will continue to pay a price they can no longer afford. The liberation policy does not mean unruliness on the part of the market and absence of control and follow-up. The only efforts made in this regard are voluntary measures undertaken by the Consumer Protection Society. This does not equate to controlling markets.

The worst aspect of this situation is that citizens feeling abandoned by the state. The government is posting a total absence from the scene and all the statements being made have nothing to do with the current price hikes that are on the increase on a daily basis.