by BERNAMA / pic by BERNAMA

The Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry (KPDNHEP) is investigating the cause for the increase in price of onions in Penang which shot up to RM24 a kilogramme.

Its minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said he had instructed his officers to use the authority of the Price Control Act 2011 to issue notices to each level of the supply chain.

He said the notice would require retailers to reveal who their distributors are and the cost price, while the distributors will have to reveal their wholesalers and the price they obtained from them.

“Before this, I was told the price of onions in Penang was RM4.90 at the lowest and RM24 the highest. So with notice 21, we can find out the cause of the increase in price of onions,” he said after launching TF Value-Mart here today.

Meanwhile, Saifuddin Nasution who is also Pantai Jerejak state assemblyman said at present, the country was not facing a shortage in the supply of onions in the market even though the main Indian exporters had stopped exporting to Malaysia.

“The onion issue was in September last year, but we have taken alternative steps to increase the import of onions from other countries such as China, Pakistan, the Netherlands and Egypt,” he said.

He said most Malaysians preferred onions from India and this was a reason why the price constantly fluctuated.