MAZAR-I-SHARIF (Pajhwok): The municipality of Mazar-i-Sharif city, the capital of northern Baklh province, has prepared a price list for a number of food items to control the market and people want the list to be enforced.
Balkh Department of Information and Culture has also issued a brief notice stating that shopkeepers are required to comply with the price list. The municipality of Mazar-i-Sharif has fixed the prices for 12 food items.
Based on the price list, a bag of 50 kg flour costs 1,870 afghanis, pack of 5 kg oil 750afghanis, a kilogram of sugar 50afs, a kilogram of beans costs 100afs, a bottle of paste costs 60afs, a kilogram of goat’s meat 350afs, one kilogram of beef 330afs and a kilogram of camel meat is 250afs.
Mazar-i-Sharif residents said that the announcement of a price list was a good step to control the market, but it required the municipality to strictly implement it.
Fazal Ahmad, a resident of Mazar-i-Sharif, said the benefit of setting food prices by the municipality was to at least prevent price hike.
He said that the municipality should strictly control the market and take legal action against shopkeepers who sold goods at higher rates than the given list.
“People are poor, they can’t afford to buy goods, prices should be further reduced because shopkeepers usually increase them,” he said.
Jumaddin, another resident of Mazar-i-Sharif, said prices were high in the market despite the municipality’s fixed list.
He said that the municipality had set the price of a 50-kg bag of flour at 1,870afs but he bought one bag for 2,100afs a day earlier.
He added that many shopkeepers did not follow the price list set by the municipality and were hoarding and misusing the free market.
Jumaddin said unemployment has worsened the economic situation of people while high prices created even more problems for them.
On the other hand, a number of food vendors in Mazar-i-Sharif say that the pricing of goods by the municipality is not a fair decision.
Mohammad Sarwar, a shopkeeper in Mazar-i-Sharif, told Pajhwok Afghan News that it was not possible for shopkeepers to sell goods in accordance with the municipality’s price list.
Commodity prices could be controlled if the government put pressure on traders to sell their imported goods on lower rates to shopkeepers, he said.
Sarwar said that the government could set prices for goods only if the goods were imported by the government itself.
“I don’t know on what basis the government has fixed the price list. Almost all commercial goods are imported by the private sector,” he said.
He said that the government should resolve traders’ problems instead of putting pressure on shopkeepers and encourage them to deliver their imports to wholesalers at cheaper rates.
Pajhwok tried to contact Mazar-i-Sharif municipality officials about people’s complaints, but no one responded.
Meanwhile, a brief statement issued by the Mazar-i-Sharif municipality on Tuesday said that officials were monitoring the prices of basic food items in the city.
According to the statement, officials of the municipality took legal action against shopkeepers who acted against the price list and their shops were shut until further notice.
The statement said all shopkeepers were required to abide by the price list set by the municipality.
Mds/ma
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