Now the rupee is rapidly appreciating and all the prices of all commodities which were sky high during the last year should come down. If this does not happen all can very clearly see that something is wrong somewhere. It is the sole responsibility of all relevant authorities to make sure that the ordinary people enjoy the relief of thecost of living going down.
By now the entire Sri Lanka knows that the rupee is rapidly appreciating while the dollar shortage of the country is no more. The price of gold and some other commodities went down drastically last week with the appreciation of the rupee against the US dollar.
Today we are talking about the prices of goods and services because extremely selfish and politically influenced traders are determined to make people suffer no matter how much the rupee appreciates against the dollar and how much price reductions are done by the Government through Sathosa.
As usual some traders have started to think politically and support a certain political party or two in order to make sure that they can make money once those political parties come into power. They are already making huge profits by selling goods and service to the innocent poor people for extremely high, unjustifiable prices.
Let us start from the three wheeler drivers. By now the entire country knows very well that three wheeler drivers in Sri Lanka are a group of people who are uneducated, addicted to various drugs, etc, and involved in crimes and all types of anti-social activities. This is not about their behaviour. This is about the prices they charge from innocent poor old feeble people and all the other ignorant people who do not know the reasonable charge for a trip. They have been doing this since March 2020 up to now.
These unscrupulous drivers who drive three wheelers all over the country and kill time in every single junction charge more than thrice for a trip from the people. The people pay them their hard earned money because they are helpless. The funniest and most pathetic part of the story is not that. All taxi services operated by reputed companies such as Pickme and Uber charge less than the relevant amount from the people. Those three-wheeler drivers who are registered with those services charge the amount recommended by the company and it is always unbelievably low when comparing with the prices charged by other three wheeler drivers who are waiting in junctions and who run through roads until a passenger gets in.
For example those companies charge something between Rs. 375 and Rs. 415 to travel five kilometres while other ordinary three wheeler drivers charge Rs. 800, Rs. 700 or at least Rs. 600 from a passenger to take him five kilometres. This is a crime. The relevant authorities should take immediate action against such three wheeler drivers to stop committing this grave crime on old, feeble and sick passengers who cannot use public transport services.
The other burning issue is the meters fixed to three wheelers. Those meters run more than the speed of light when a passenger gets into a metered taxi (three wheeler) and at the end of the short trip the charge shown in the taxi meter is something unbelievable and no passenger can pay the amount because the amount is definitely over Rs. 500 even for a very short distance. Sometimes they threaten and rob passengers. Various taxi and cab services operate through apps such as Pickme, Uber, etc., charge less than Rs. 200 for such a trip and it is always Rs. 175 or Rs. 180.
It is the responsibility of youth to help their old, feeble or sick parents, relatives, etc, to use the relevant apps and order three wheelers from companies such as Pickme and Uber when they require rides. They should help the old to install apps and teach them how to use them if possible. Sometimes some aged parents are used to taking down notes and doing things. This way they can use the apps by themselves.
At the same time those companies should introduce new technologies that can help the old, feeble and sick people to obtain their service without using apps. Maybe they can introduce hotlines. They have already provided the facility to book a trip for someone else.
Sathosa slashes prices of commodities from time to time and by now Sathosa has already slashed prices of a large number of commodities during the past several months. With the appreciation of the rupee, Sathosa slashed prices of several commodities last week. People are relieved now due to lowering prices of goods, especially the essential food items.
But some traders are not that humane and some of them are doing their sales in order to achieve political targets. Those traders never slash the prices of goods. What they want is maximum profits while making people angry towards the Government and the President in order to popularize certain political parties which do not have anything to show to the people as their services and cannot win democratic elections.
Fortunately the people understand this very well and they avoid using such shops to buy their requirements. The prices of goods at those shops never go down even by a cent no matter how much the rupee appreciates. The funniest part is the prices of popular supermarket chains are much lower than the prices of those selected shops owned by the henchmen of certain political parties.
It is high time for the ordinary quiet people to come forward against this invisible group of crooks who own shops all over the country and make it difficult for the people to buy goods at a reasonable price. Already people are avoiding such shops. Shopping in supermarkets is much cheaper than buying goods from such shops. Such shops can operate very easily in areas where people are being forced to buy things from a shop or two and where there are no shops around to select.
Last week some traders from Pettah told the electronic media that they cannot lower prices of goods because they paid high prices for them. But whenever the prices are increased they never sell anything for the same old price because they did not pay the increased price when they purchased those items. People rarely question them. There is no proper system to detect them while they do this evil practice.
This evil practice is done often by dealers who sell LPG. Whenever there is a price increase, they collect stocks and keep in order to sell the LPG cylinders for a higher price but when the price of LPG reduces, they say there is no LPG available and tell customers to wait for a day or two.
It is the very same with several other commodities in the country. Unfortunately the people cannot always go and find traders who sell goods for a reasonable price. The only way out is regular raids and detection to find out who sells goods for unreasonable prices. A mechanism should be established at Grama Niladhari Division level in order to detect such traders with hidden agendas and force people to buy their goods for higher prices.
It is something usual in this country since independence to increase prices of goods and services and not reduce those prices once the price reduction is done at top level slashing prices internationally and locally. This is the common habit of the majority of traders who sell various goods and services islandwide. They do not stop there. They buy loads of items from Sathosa outlets from time to time and sometimes use family members (when Sathosa issues a certain number of one item to one person) and sell the same stuff for higher prices in their shops.
It is very surprising to see how some traders do this using supermarkets. They buy certain items such as white sugar from supermarkets and sell for a higher price at their shops. But no media or people talk about this. Maybe it is because only the people who observe their hourly, daily behaviour notice such acts. But it is the duty of all media to detect such crooks and expose them to the people.
Another bad act done by traders is hiding commodities and issuing them for selected customers. Usually those customers buy everything from their shops but sometimes they do this to customers who do not support their political views, etc. These types of acts are very common in remote areas where there are less number of shops located within a certain area.
Now the rupee is rapidly appreciating and all the prices of all commodities which were sky high during the last year should come down. If this does not happen all can very clearly see that something is wrong somewhere. It is the sole responsibility of all relevant authorities to make sure that the ordinary people enjoy the relief of the cost of living going down. The Government should make sure that it shuts down the mouths of unscrupulous traders who say “go and get goods from the Government for those slashed prices and this is our price”.
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