By Muhammad Al-Sulami

Jeddah, Apr 13 (ARAB News): Saudis have called for assigning the responsibility of market monitoring and price control to the Interior Ministry instead of the Commerce and Industry Ministry, which they say has completely failed in this important task.

The calls intensified after the recent announcement from the Madinah governorate that it had caught a number of people increasing the rates of hotel rooms and furnished apartments during the peak spring break tourism season.

The governorate said the difference in price between what these establishments were allowed to charge and what they illegally charged was reimbursed to customers.

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah recently ordered a living allowance increase of 15 percent on top of the already approved 15 percent raise in the salaries of government employees.

The king also approved the creation of 500 jobs at the Commerce Ministry to enable it to monitor markets and control prices.

Talking to Arab News, a number of citizens said they were burdened by steadily rising prices and accused the ministry of not bothering to implement the royal decree to name and shame traders who increase prices without any justification, regardless of their standing.

“The citizens have not benefited from the monitoring role of the ministry. It is the traders who benefit from the efforts of the ministry in discovering counterfeit goods that harm their interests,” Nasser Al-Joudary, a citizen, told Arab News.

He said the ministry’s excuse that the market was open and prices were controlled by supply and demand were not acceptable.

“The responsibility of price control and market monitoring should be given to a neutral body that does not give much attention to the interests of traders like the Ministry of Commerce, which is only going after small merchants and counterfeit goods,” said Saleh Al-Dousi, another citizen.

He said the ministry was silent while the prices of many commodities were being raised.

“The prices of flour, rice, sugar and tomatoes were unjustifiably raised. The price of baby milk has gone up from SR36 a can to SR62,” he said, adding that the phenomenon would increase the pressure on poor families.

Citizen Hamdan Al-Tarjami agreed and said the responsibility of price control should be given to a neutral party not influenced by any financial or social pressures.

“Raising salaries even by 100 percent will be fruitless as long as the market eats them up through inflating prices,” he said.

Faisal Al-Sahali believes that the Interior Ministry would be more capable of controlling prices by publicizing the names of violators.

“Controlling prices is a basic demand of the citizen if he is to benefit from the recent royal decrees. When traders of building materials heard that the housing loans would be increased from SR300,000 to SR500,000, they immediately doubled their prices,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Protection Association had reportedly received more than 300 complaints against price increases since the royal decrees were announced about a month ago. The association noted that since the royal decrees were issued, prices of some basic commodities were increased by 50 to 70 percent.

Even Saudi Arabian Airlines has hinted it could raise ticket prices after recently revealing they have remained stagnant for more than 16 years, the association said.