Thefts, black market sales, selling at excessive prices… Rationing creates a new breed of criminals. Some smart guys do not mind making a few extra bucks during this rationing period. More than 50 complaints have been made to the Consumer Affairs Unit (CAU) against small traders who have sold overnight the bottles of oil at excessively high prices. The department has warned of fines and temporary seizures of their licenses.
Creating an artificial shortage
These traders are reportedly earning between 5 to 10 rupees extra on a litre of edible oil. Although the commerce minister and importers have given the assurance that there is no shortage of oil and that the rationing may be lifted soon, some are still convinced that oil prices will rise soon and are holding on to their stocks, while other traders are already selling them at the higher prices. As the rationing is two bottles per person, there are many customers who indirectly help to spread this trend of selling at higher prices. In this ‘Panic Buying’ impulse, they are willing to pay more even with the awareness that they are helping to create an artificial shortage in the long run and to the detriment of the next buyer.
Fines and operation ban
The Consumer Affairs Unit (CAU) has announced that officers will be ruthless in making surprise visits. Fines will be served to merchants who are caught. And as Soodesh Callichurn had already announced on Monday 21st March after his meeting with oil importers, following complaints of empty oil shelves in medium and large stores while the ‘blinds’ were full after controls, apart from fines, “In case of recurrence, the Ministry will seek a court order to prevent the businesses in question from operating temporarily.” The same procedure could be applied on small traders!
3456 bottles of oil stolen from a warehouse
If on this Tuesday the traders are tagged of making profits in these times of sorrow, on Monday, late in the afternoon, four ‘oil thieves’ were caught in flagrante delicto in the warehouse where they work. They were caught by the security guard while they were throwing bottle after bottle through the windows onto the neighbouring property. The modus operandi was to move the lot as far away as possible from the building and retrieve the bottles later, which would then be sold on the black market. Questioned and confronted with visual evidence recorded by the CCTV, they admitted their theft only for 677 bottles, but according to the company’s inventory, the theft would have been for 3,456 bottles worth Rs 663,552. According to the company, these four individuals living in Port Louis would not be at their first blow. They were arrested by the police.
With this rationing, edible oil is gold in a bottle! This is not the result of a global shortage but a government control following the closure to export by producers in Egypt due to lack of commodities such as the sunflower they get from Ukraine, which, in the midst of war with Russia, has frozen all commercial operations.
