Jakarta, The Indonesia Post – President Joko Widodo, Friday, announced that the Indonesian government would ban the export of cooking oil and its raw materials, which will take effect from Thursday, April 28, 2022, for an undetermined time limit.
This was taken as a Presidential Decree after chairing a meeting attended by ministers to discuss the fulfillment of the people’s basic needs, the President said in a statement broadcast on the official YouTube channel of the Presidential Secretariat, Friday.
“In the meeting, I decided that the government would prohibit the export of raw materials for cooking oil and cooking oil starting Thursday, April 28, 2022, until a time limit will be determined later,” said the President.
The President promised to directly monitor and evaluate the implementation of the policy.
“So that the availability of cooking oil in the country is abundant at affordable prices,” said the Head of State.
The increase in cooking oil prices and stock shortages in the market have occurred since the end of 2021 and the government had tried to overcome this situation by imposing a tightening on CPO exports and prioritizing meeting domestic needs.
The government is trying to control prices through Minister of Trade Regulation Number 6 of 2022 which was set on January 26 in the form of setting the highest retail price (HET) at Rp. 11,500 per liter for bulk cooking oil, Rp. 13,500 per liter for simple packaged cooking oil, and Rp. 14,000. per liter for premium packaged cooking oil.
However, recently the policy was abolished because it failed to overcome the scarcity of cooking oil in the market so that the government only imposed the HET for bulk cooking oil of Rp. 14,000 per liter.
The Attorney General’s Office on Tuesday (19/4) named four suspects in the alleged case of granting an export permit facility for crude palm oil (CPO) and its derivatives, including cooking oil, in January 2021-March 2022 which caused a shortage of cooking oil.
The four suspects are the Director General of Foreign Trade (Dirjen Perdaglu) of the Ministry of Trade Indrasari Wisnu Wardhana, Senior Manager of Corporate Affairs at Permata Hijau Group Standly MA, Commissioner of PT Wilmar Nabati Indonesia Master Paulian Tumanggor, and General Manager of General Affairs of PT Musim Mas Picare Togar Sitanggang.
The Director General of Perdaglu was named a suspect because he had issued export approvals related to CPO commodities and its derivative products to Permata Hijau Group, PT Wilmar Nabati Indonesia, PT Multimas Nabati Asahan, and PT Musim Mas. (ojn/bbs)
Comment