Yogyakarta Regional Police will act upon the scarcity of cooking oil in their region. In the past few days, they have observed several markets in their effort to assess the situation.
The Head of Public Relations (Kabid Humas) of Polda DIY, Commissioner Yuliyanto said that in the past few weeks, the Directorate of Special Criminal Investigation (Ditreskrimsus) has inspected four locations. The four locations, in particular, are the locations that have been warehoused for cooking oil distributors, that were found empty of cooking oil.
“The initial report is the warehouse is empty of cooking oil because there is no distribution yet,” said Kabid Humas.
Commissioner Yuliyanto emphasized that this inspection will continue to conduct and also encourage the police across DIY to inspect the marketplace and locations that potentially hoards cooking oil.
“If we found a cooking oil hoard, then we will act strictly against it,” he said.
Kabid Humas also said that they will be charged the hoarders with Law Number 7 of 2014 concerning Trade. The sanction in Article 107 is a maximum of five years in prison or a maximum fine of Rp. 50 billion.
Those laws are charged to businessmen if they are found hoarding basic necessities and/or important items with a large number and at a certain time when those said items are rare.
Various policies to control domestic cooking oil prices were rolled out in January 2022. Although the national average price was gradually falling, cooking oil prices were still high, above the highest retail price (HET).
In fact, the fulfillment of domestic market needs for crude palm oil (CPO) and processed CPO has been rolling for three weeks. However, the cooking oil prices are surging in areas that seemed out of control.
