At least 4,000 metric tons or 4 million kilos of seized smuggled sugar were approved to be sold at Kadiwa outlets at a cheaper price, the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) said on Wednesday.
At the televised public briefing, SRA acting administrator Pablo Luis Azcona said the sugar will be sold at P70 per kilo.
“We still have an additional 6,000 MT confiscated sugar. Hopefully, it will also be released once it is proven safe and approved for sale, for donation to Kadiwa,” he added.
Meanwhile, Sen. Risa Hontiveros slammed those behind the spike in sugar price to P136 per kilo as “robbing the consumers.”
She said Malacanang, the Department of Agriculture, and SRA’s Azcona should know the reason for the spike since “they created the sugar cartel.”
“This is not just ‘tubong lugaw’ (profit far exceeding investment) but outright robbery of consumers across the country who are being forced to carry this with the help of corruption and mismanagement,” Hontiveros said.
The senator said the local sugar refineries or azucarera had already sold their supply to traders, and that according to former SRA Administrator Rafael Coscolluela, this should have lowered the cost of sugar from P86 to P90 per kilo.
And since 170,000 metric tons of sugar from All Asian Countertrade, Sucden Philippines and Edison Lee Marketing have entered the market, Hontiveros said sugar can be sold in the market at P70 per kilo without losses for retailers.
“So instead of the price of sugar going down, why the increase?” she asked, while lambasting the additional P40 to P60 passed on to Filipinos.
“It appears that retailers, food producers, traders, wholesalers and the market are taking their cues from the favored importers and their irregularities,” the senator added.
Wholesalers, she said, may be aligning their price offers with those of the cartel.
Hontiveros said food producers, traders and retailers were forced to buy sugar even at high prices “because there’s no other source.”
They are also fearful of running out of stocks “because rumors are rife that Sucden (Philippines Inc., an importer and distributor) does not have enough capital to import the 100,000 metric tons assigned to them,” she added.
“Are retail price controls the solution? Not if they’re not the ones who padded the unbelievably high prices. This would probably result in a greater lack of supply of sugar in our retail markets,” the senator said.
It should be remembered, Hontiveros said, that apart from the earlier imports, Sugar Order No. 6 obligated the three government-approved importers to buy 440,000 metric tons of sugar from local suppliers.
“This means that the cartel can control almost 880,000 metric tons of sugar, which will surely be sold at high prices to the public. That’s part of the market’s fears,” she said.
Instead of price control on sugar retail prices, the senator said the government should focus on price monitoring and control for wholesale purchases, “because that’s where the powerful cartels can dictate prices.”
Hontiveros noted that about 260,000 metric tons need to be imported from Thailand to reach the supply the country needs.
“The SRA should act now and give import licenses to qualified importers as provided by Sugar Order No. 6. We hope the government moves now before sugar supplies fall even more, leading to a higher spike in prices,” she said.
