The offensive launched by the Ministry of Commerce to curb the rise in prices has shocked the industry of mass consumption. Producers and large supermarket chains make it known your worry and your anger due to the tightening of controls in recent days to verify compliance with the Fair Price. And they admit to being baffled for the 779 fines applied this year by Matías Tombolini’s office (for a total of 806.5 million dollars), in record time and without respecting the rigorous previous steps. “They haven’t told us anything,” they underline.
In recent days, according to sources close to Tombolini, checks on gondolas and warehouses have been intensified due to the high level of shortage of the products that make up the regulated price regime. And last Monday evening (during the Carnival holidays) a Jumbo hypermarket was closed, because “32 products were out of stock and more than 14 had more than 80% shortages”. It was an express closure, because this Thursday it reopened. It only lasted 48 hours.
To generate greater confusion is the list of sanctioned companies published by Commercio and also by Tombolini himself. How could you confirm clarion, the sanctions have hit Nestlé, Cabrales, Mondelez, Carrefour, Cencosud (which controls the Jumbo, Disco and Vea chains), Changomás (the former Walmart), Día and the wholesalers Maxiconsumo and Josimar. The name of the remaining company was not disclosed, nor was the accumulated amount that each of them must pay. “We have not received any notification and they have not drawn up a report for us either”says the majority.
The confusion has risen so high, that several companies exchanged requests referring to the official information released this week. And also with regard to the “surprise” inspections and the closure of the Jumbo branch, which belongs to the Chilean group Cencosud, which also controls and manages the Disco and Vea brands. It is the second largest chain in the country, after the French Carrefour, another of those targeted for the lack of products in the Fair Price basket.
“Since November we have been warning Tombolini of the lack of goods and that the producers deliver much less than we ask”, complains a source from the supermarket. In any case, they believe that multiplication controls expresses the government’s enormous concern about inflationary overheating. What’s more: many ignore the reason for the fines, the exact amount and when they were applied. “They didn’t even call us to file the defense,” they say. They allude to one of the stages in the inspection process, which it takes on average between 1.5 and 2 years.
In the absence of precision, in the sector hazard two hypotheses about it, although they agree that it is “an exaggeration” of the Government for the regrowth of prices in January and so far in February. They say it above all for the video carefully edited, subtitled and scripted that Tombolini tweeted to amplify the closure of the Jumbo.
The first is that the fines come from previous attempts at Tombolini, that is to say from the times of Paula Español and Roberto Feletti, who were the first two Secretaries of Commerce in the government of Alberto Fernández. The second is that it is not a question of fines but of deeds that are created in the face of alleged irregularities, which does not necessarily imply a sanction.
Businesses are also affected by the increase in operations in recent days. All the more if we take into account that the Ministry of Commerce itself boasted of the “high level of compliance with Fair Prices”. The current scheme has a basket with 2,000 basic products frozen until June and a maximum increase of 3.2% per month – the “price path” – for another 50,000 products including items such as footwear, mobile phones, textiles and even inputs industrial for production.
Source: Clarin
