Monopoly is a form of market domination practiced by dishonest traders in order to make quick profits. They actually choose to burden the citizens, particularly low-income people. The monopoly does not only lead to soaring prices and lack of commodities in the markets but also lead to further short- and long- term serious implications.
The government along with all its bodies has taken quick steps to oppose monopoly practices before things get worse in order to put an end to monopoly Mafia and protect the citizens from those greedy traders.
The General Department of Supply and Trade Police (GDSTP) has exerted intensive efforts to arrest monopoly mafia and its efforts have been crowned with seizure of huge amounts of rice and sugar stored by traders from all over governorates.
The GDSTP has seized 28 tons of sugar at sesame oil factory located in Quesna road, Monofeya governorate as well as 1.5 tons of sugar before being smuggled into the black market in New Valley governorate.
The GDSTP has also managed to arrest a grocer with two tons of sugar at Atfeeh district in southern Giza and an owner of Badrashin based packaging factory with 10 tons of sugar.
Moreover, The GDSTP has dealt a serious blow to monopoly mafia and has managed to seize huge amounts of rice stored and smuggled into the black market. The GDSTP has arrested a trader in Alexandria with 9 tons of rice and seized 7 tons of barley and rice at Gharbia governorate. The GDSTP has also arrested a storekeeper with 7 tons of barley rice at Al-Matareya district and seized 37 tons of rice of unknown source at one of food barns at Misr El-Qadima district. Two traders have also been arrested with 90 tons of barley rice and 7 tons have been seized at Al-Salam city.
The GDSTP’s campaigns have revealed that a number of officials who are directly responsible for food commodity provision are involved in the crisis as they have tried to monopolize basic commodities with intent to increase its prices and reintroduce them into the markets in order to make huge profits.
The GDSTP’s arrests have revealed that a number of owners of sugar and rice manufacturing and packaging factories as well as a number of food commodity traders, supply traders and owners of food stores, barns and companies are also involved in the crisis.
Investigations also revealed hidden role played by unregistered food and packaging companies in the crisis and the Ministry of Supply has been able to detect those companies and made a list of its names.
Reasons of basic commodity monopoly
Monopoly practices have taken many forms; some food packaging companies may resort to manipulate food commodities sizes while some storeowners and supply traders may store huge amounts of food commodities, such as sugar, cooking oil and rice, in order to create a made-up crisis due to lack of those commodities in the markets, which will lead to increasing its prices due to increase in demand and lack of supply.
A similar case happened with recharge cards when VAT has been applied on mobile scratch cards, traders have stored those cards until its new price is determined in order to sell them gradually at the new prices.
The primary danger of monopoly is that it will result in a significant increase in commodity prices and such increase will put pressure on the poorer and deprived classes and will eventually lead to create tension that will in turn lead to rising crime rates. This is typically the aim of terrorist groups that seek to create a “pessimistic climate” as has been recently revealed following arrest of “Crisis Terrorist Cell”, which has been planning to burden and put pressure on citizens in order to claim that the state had failed to provide basic goods and meet needs of citizens.
