Daily Times

Persistent food inflation, despite the formation of a high-level committee to check prices of essential items in the country, has left the government with egg on its face once again because this is yet another artificial price surge that has nothing to do with the fundamentals of the economy. Simply put, this is an example of cost-push, not demand-pull, inflation; the variety that does not accompany a growing economy with improving incomes rather is just imposed on the people for no fault of theirs. And in times of economic contraction at worst or very mild and meaningless growth at best, such problems are amplified that much more and actually tend to push a large number of people below the poverty line.

Also, for prices of major kitchen items like wheat flour, cooking oil and sugar to rise so steeply, especially since the government has been promising since forever to use all the state’s might to bring them down and keep them in check, is simply unacceptable. These are very fragile times for everybody and the weak economy means that there is a lot of pressure on people’s incomes and savings, and they just do not have the kind of cushion to accommodate the government’s failure to do one of its most basic jobs properly.

To blame international trends and prices is of no use since this particular problem has been building for a very long time and a number of items that are exhibiting erratic price movement are in abundant supply in the home market. And if middlemen have really been pushing prices higher with their unlawful speculation, why is the government just making excuses about it instead of sorting them out and restoring price stability? The ruling party seems to be very good at identifying problems that are very important to address. Yet for some reason that is as far as it is able to go in most cases and the people’s most pressing issues, largely, remain unaddressed. The government should be mindful that food inflation has proved to be the undoing of many a power in not just our country’s but the whole world’s history. Hopefully the people will not have to complain too much for a return of rationality and affordability to their budgets. *