KUALA TERENGGANU – The supply of essential goods nationwide remains stable despite a reported increase in shopping activities at supermarkets over the past three days, says Deputy Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Rosol Wahid.
He said 2,262 enforcement officers from the ministry are monitoring and checking supplies at all levels of the supply chain nationwide.
“Besides that, 222 parliamentary consumerism coordinators from the ministry are also helping to monitor their respective parliamentary constituencies. If the inspection detects a supply problem, immediate action will be taken to address it.
“For example, our survey at one of the largest wholesale companies here today found that sugar supply has been disrupted for the past two weeks, so immediate action has been taken for it to be resolved as soon as possible, and so that it does not affect consumers,” he said today.
With him was Terengganu KPDNHEP director Saharuddin Mohd Kia.
Among the items monitored daily are sugar, cooking oil, wheat flour, rice, white bread, milk powder, chicken, vegetables, eggs, onions, hand sanitisers and masks.
He said the monitoring includes 160 selected district retailers and 74 selected district wholesalers throughout Terengganu who have been given permission to store scheduled controlled items at 20% above the storage limit according to their licences.
In the meantime, he said operations to monitor the two-hour maximum shopping time limit implemented by the ministry was put on hold after the government announced the total lockdown to avoid panic-buying among the public.
“During its implementation from May 25 to May 29, 1,257 premises and 11,975 customers were inspected nationwide.
“During the period, no compounds were issued and the public compliance rate was good... only some had exceeded the time by four minutes. Overall, they understood the purpose of the operation held to prevent the spread of Covid-19.” – Bernama, May 31, 2021
