TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman has blacklisted five garlic importers proven to have violated the law. Amran said the five companies broke a number of rules including price-fixing and manipulating the mandatory planting requirement.
"The rogue importers have been blacklisted and their owners have been named as suspects," Amran said here on Friday, June 1.
The minister added that the blacklisted firms and their cronies are forbidden from conducting business in the food sector.
Earlier, the police's crime investigators department revealed cases of garlic imports abuse. Comr. Daniel Tahi Monang Silitonga, deputy director of special crimes, said four companies—PT Pertani, PT CGM, PT FMT, and PT ASJ—have violated import rules. Another company, PT TSR, was revealed to have been selling illegally-imported garlics.
Amran said that these companies fixed garlic prices, selling them between Rp45,000 and Rp60,000 per kilogram—far above the initial price of just Rp5,600 per kilogram.
"In just one year, they can gain profit of up to Rp19 trillion," the minister said.
Amran said that the of garlic import quota that these companies were allotted has now been transferred to Regional Owned Enterprises as well as to State-Owned Enterprises in several province including West Java, West Sumatra, East Java, West Nusa Tenggara, and South Sulawesi.
Dias Prasongko
