Sugar has become scarce like gold dust in the capital but the government is yet to take any measure to ensure supply and fair price of the essential sweetener, with the month of Ramadan approaching fast.
Most of the grocers in the city did no sell any sugar on Saturday, claiming that they had no stocks. The few shops that retailed sugar on the day charged Tk 72 to 75 per kilogram, although the government on July 20 set its maximum retail price at Tk 65.
Wholesalers in the city’s Moulvibazar on Saturday claimed the sugar price spiral was caused by a huge supply shortfall as most of the refiners had not sold any sugar to them after the banning of delivery order system.
A mobile court on the day found that sugar was being retailed at Tk 72 per kg, Tk 8 more than the government-set price, at Polashibazar in the capital. The court also found that that particular lot of sugar had changed hands six times on its way from Moulvibazar wholesale hub to retailers at Polashibazar.
Executive magistrate Abul Bashar Md Fakhruzzaman of the court said, ‘The reduced supply of sugar from the millers had pushed up its price and the supply dearth also has created a horde of middlemen between the wholesalers and the retailers.’
He said he would report the findings to the officials concerned at the commerce ministry and recommend initiatives for forcing the millers to supply sugar to their distributors in the capital.
The government on July 20 set the price ceiling of sugar for all stages of its supply chain in an attempt to rein in its unremitting price spiral. The commerce ministry in a meeting with sugar refiners on the day set its maximum mill gate price at Tk 58 per kilo and wholesale price at Tk 62.
The wholesalers said a few of them, who had managed to procure some stocks of sugar at prices much higher than the government-set ones from outside of Dhaka, could not sell it at the price set by the government as there was a high demand for sugar against a near-zero supply in the wholesale market.
The wholesalers also said the Abdul Monem Sugar Refinery was the only miller which had supplied an insignificant amount of Igloo brand sugar to the distributors in the capital, while four other refiners – Deshbandhu, S Alam, Meghna Group, and Partex Group – had kept sugar production suspended at their factories.
S Alam Group vice chairman Abdus Samad admitted that they had just started sugar production again at their factory in last week after keeping it closed for a long time.
The Moulvibazar wholesalers also alleged that the City Refinery of Old Dhaka had not supplied any sugar to its distributors in the capital since the launch of distributorship of sugar and edible oils on June 20.
When contacted, City Group of Industries general manager Biswajit Saha admitted that they had not supplied any sugar to their distributors in Dhaka since June 20 but, he claimed, they had been supplying it to their distributors in other districts, assuming that other refiners would supply sugar to the capital.
A Moulvibazar wholesaler said the global price of raw sugar crossed $800 per tonne in March, when the government introduced the distributorship system for selling sugar and edible oils.
‘At that time, the refiners stopped opening letters of credit for raw sugar import, thinking that they might incur loss by importing raw sugar at such a high price and selling it at a fixed price under the distributorship system,’ he said.
When the raw sugar price on the global market posted a significant decline in May, the refiners started opening L/Cs for its import, he said, adding that it was why the refiners had kept production at their factories suspended for such a long time.
-With New Age input
