People raising concern over hike in price of commodities

Friday, July 13th, 2012

People have been expressing concern over rising prices of essential commodities in the country. According to them every government comes to power with misleading the public with various unfulfilled presidential oaths. They say that the governments never seem to remember these oaths they made to the public to get elected.

Abu Bakr Ali, age 45 of H. Dh. Kulhudhufushi said that the people are devastated with the rise in the price of essential commodities.

“The prices of essential commodities and food are escalating. There were many talks that the prices will come down when the duty tax is exempted. Since then it has been a long time but up until now there is still no good outcome. And with the GST, the prices have skyrocketed. As a consequence, we the common man are totally devastated,” Abu Bakr said.

One of the reformation brought to the economic policies during the regime of former President Mohamed Nasheed is to waive import duty from all commodities. The government started taking Goods and Services Tax (GST) instead and claimed that although the prices might rise due to the taking of GST, the price of goods will decrease when the new goods are imported without the duty. Six months have passed since then and no such thing have been witnessed yet.

“This is strange. Had it not been three months yet? Maybe no goods have been imported since the government waived the duty. With the change of power, the new government also raised some hopes in the people. However, they also have forgotten all that talk after a few days,” Mohamed Umar, a person working in the market said.

Mohamed said that everyone comes to power by showing false dreams to the people. And after coming to power all of these promises are forgotten.

Mohamed who supports President Dr. Mohamed Waheed said that he feels that the influences surrounding the President will obstruct him from making things easier on the common man.

Like Mohamed those who have expressed such thoughts have been complaining regarding the shortage of dollars in the country. Hussain Ismail said that it is bizarre that all foreign currencies are in shortage when the Maldives earns a lot of foreign currency. He said that it is a very difficult process to buy dollars from the Banks. He said that one has to wait in the queue all day but only ten are granted with only 200 dollars maximum each day.

Hussain said that the process is the same for the person who is seeking dollars to go abroad for immediate medical treatment. He added that the black market price of dollars is MRF 17.18 and there are some rumours that it will be hiking again.

Miadhu News asked economic expert Mohamed Giyas regarding the shortage in dollar despite the great number of dollars earned by the tourism industry of the Maldives. He said that annually the country gets an income of about 1.6 billion US dollars and when the foreign currency expenditure is subtracted from that amount, more than 700million dollars should be saved as reserve every year.

“What is happening is that the calculations are altered. The amount publicized is lower than the actual amount earned. All these earnings are deposited in foreign accounts. The problem is that we have no efficient trade policies here in Maldives,” Giyas said.

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