TEMPO.CO, Padang, West Sumatra - Home Affairs Minister Tito Karnavian urged the governors, district heads, and mayors in the country to anticipate inflation ahead of Ramadan.

"I ask regional heads to immediately work to suppress high inflation in regions and collect data at the Statistics Indonesia (BPS) and the Ministry of Home Affairs," Karnavian remarked here on Sunday.

According to him, there are two problems that trigger inflation in an area.

First, the lack of supply and a surge in demand in the community.

During Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr, the price of staples such as rice, chicken meat, eggs, and so on will soar.

Therefore, he asked every regional head to be aware of it.

"Please be aware and immediately increase the staple supply. Then, the distribution must be smooth," he said.

Karnavian, who presided over the national-level commemoration of the 74th anniversary of the Public Security and Order Agency (Satpol PP) and the 62nd Community Protection Unit (Satlinmas), emphasized that Satpol PP has an important role in helping law enforcement officers prevent the hoarding of goods.

On a separate occasion, the Head of the West Sumatra BPS, Sugeng Arianto, said that inflation in the province reached 3.32 percent in February 2024 in a year-on-year (yoy).

He explained that the inflation was due to the price hike in a number of expenditure groups.

"This inflation is due to the increase in the price of food, beverage, and tobacco group expenditure by 6.84 percent," Arianto remarked.

Other groups that triggered inflation are clothing and footwear by 2.01 percent, housing, water, electricity, and household fuel by 1.65 percent.

Furthermore, household maintenance tools increased by 0.59 percent, health by 2.88 percent, transportation by 1.39 percent, and the information, communication, and financial services group by 0.07 percent.

ANTARA

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