PUTRAJAYA, April 14 — The government will impose the movement control order (MCO) Maximum Price Scheme from tomorrow until April 28, said Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.
He said the scheme would ensure control over the prices of 12 daily essentials such as chicken, chicken eggs, cooking oil, wheat flour and kembong fish.
“Details of the mechanism of the MCO Maximum Price Scheme will be announced by the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs (KPDNHEP).
“The government takes heed of the people’s complaints about the attitude of some unscrupulous traders who raise prices of essential goods,” he told the daily MCO press conference here today.
Meanwhile, Ismail Sabri also stressed that there was no reason for panic buying as there were sufficient supply of food and other daily essentials.
He also said that KPDNHEP enforcement personnel yesterday inspected 1,133 business premises, which included 844 retailers, 260 wholesalers and 29 manufacturers.
Asked about the implementation of the standard operating procedure (SOP) of the Ramadan e-bazaar, he said the matter would be discussed in a Cabinet meeting tomorrow.
He said, according to the allowed Ramadan e-bazaar method, shoppers would only need to order food and delivery will be made to their location.
“If the buyer orders food items and goes out of the house to collect the items, this will cause mass movement. Tomorrow we will raise this point at the Cabinet meeting. We will decide on the dos and don’ts.
“The idea is so that people do not have any excuse to go out. We don’t want the people to start giving excuses of having to collect ordered food when they are stopped at the roadblocks,” he said.
— Bernama
