Re: Atta crisis deepens as country faces famine like situation
Isn't govt responsible for keeping control of the prices and make laws to prevent people from injustices?
Price control is govt responsibility and they should put check in place so no one gets extra profit. Prices should be labelled and anyone gets caught selling at higher price should receive hefty fines.But unfortunately there is no system in Pakistan....no one cares at higher level.
Actually the government does care, but unfortunately it is using 500 years old method to control a 20th century problem.
Zafar bro! And that 500 years old method is called "government fixed prices". In today's global economy, you cannot fix the price lower than what free market wants to charge.
The problem with Pakistan is not price fixing by the government. Pak government fixes the price for sure. The real problem is with the monopoly of wheat or flour suppliers that stops the flow of commodity if they don't get their desired price.
But we the people demand that the government must create monopoly (utility stores) to fight the monopoly of the flour wholesale market.
That vicious circle of monopolies creates shortages, smuggling, and hoarding. This will go on until Pakistan's retail sector is too small to fight the whole sale sector.
In free market economy, government keeps the hands off of fixing the prices. Instead it punishes those who collude and monopolize the trade.
Unfortunately we need a huge change in our mind set to move forward from 500 years old "price-fixing-fixation".