TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Deputy Chairman of the House of Representatives Fadli Zon urged the government to expose the garlic cartel which is suspected to be the cause of the rising price in the market.

"I got the information, thirteen garlic importers are now controlling the market and they can set the price of garlic in the market," said Fadli Zon, Wednesday, April 4.

According to Fadli Zon, the garlic cartel can hurt the citizen because of the instability of the imported food prices.

The importers are playing the price in the market for the benefit of a number of groups, he said.

Fadli Zon urged the Government through the Ministry of Trade and the Ministry of Agriculture to expose the garlic cartel by giving other importers the opportunities to import the 125,984 tons of garlic from China.

"The cartel keeps the price in the range of Rp50,000 to Rp90,000 per kilograms in many regions, by removing gradually the imported garlic to the market," he said.

Fadli Zon also observed the results of Summary of Semester Examination Result (IHPS) II 2017 submitted by the State Audit Board (BPK) to the leadership of the House of Representatives, on Tuesday.

According to Fadli, in IHPS II in 2017, BPK criticized the import policy issued by the Minister of Trade Enggartiasto Lukita.

According to Fadli, the nine import commodities referred to by BPK are, sugar, rice, beef, beef, soybeans, and salt.

The BPK findings, according to him, are based on the results of the examination that assess the Internal Control System (SPI) as well as the compliance with the provisions of legislation on the implementation of limited meetings, the determination of import allocation, the issuance of import licenses, the reporting of the realization of imports, as well as monitoring and evaluation of imports for commodities food.

"The BPK recommends the Ministry of Trade to develop an in a trade portal, which is integrated with the portal owned by other agencies/entities that provide coordinated documentation data and recommendation data," said Fadli Zon.

ANTARA