Consumers say traders charge whatever they want. There are no price controls.
Abdul Haq, a resident of Ahmad Shah Baba Mina, complains shopkeepers are intent on emptying people’s pockets.
Abdul Haq, a resident of Ahmad Shah Baba Mina, complains shopkeepers are intent on emptying people’s pockets. “They say this is a free market. To buy is your choice. It is their right to sell at whatever price.”
Twenty three-year-old Ahmad sells fruits in the Paghman district of Kabul. He insists that in a market economy the government has no right to interfere. “Brother, there is a free market!” he exclaims. “I will sell in the way I wish.”
A butcher in one of the capital city’s posher neighbourhoods, Share Naw, threw this reporter out of his shop. Angrily waving a cleaver, he says, “Shahre na pursan (a phrase which means there is no accountability). The meat belongs to me; I will sell at the price I want. What is it to you? You say ‘I am a journalist’. Go away, and do your own business.”
Shir Ahmad, 32, of Maidan Wardak province says there are no checks on traders. “There is no one to ask the shopkeepers why are they so greedy?”
He thinks the government should intervene on behalf of hapless consumers. “The government has to explain if robbing the customer in the name of the free market is permitted. Can shopkeepers set the prices according to their own wishes?”
Encouraging growth
Ruhullah who has a foodshop in Maidan Wardak believes the market and not the government should decide prices. “We should set the prices. There should be competition because this is a free market.”
Grocery shop owner Noor Mohammad of Laghman province says big traders dictate prices. “We charge on the basis of what is the price in the retail market. Those rise day by day. For instance a dozen Chines bracelets were 1500 Afs last week (30 USD). Now it has gone up to 2000 Afs (40 USD). At what price should we sell? Who controls the bazaar? We or they (retailers)? Who makes the profit?”
In fact a mafia controls the markets says Zaifoon Saphi, member of parliament from Laghman province. Though he did not divulge any names, he claims, “Some governmental authorities are connected with tradesmen who abuse the order of the bazaar and have created a mafia and monopolist ring that is anti-Afghan and against order.”
Khan Jan Alokozai, the assistant director in the Chamber of Commerce and Industries thinks the mess in the bazaars is caused by people who hold dual citizenship, and own houses outside the country. “They take money from Afghans and put it in other countries. Their families live a safe live, and they don’t care about the sorrows of people living in the country,” he says.
Weak enforcement
Aziz Shams, spokesman of the Finance Ministry, says what Afghanistan needs is a mixed market system. Sayed Masood, lecturer at Kabul University, says the present system was “imposed and forced”. Hamidullah Faroqi, another lecturer in the Faculty of Economics, says the system cannot be faulted, but its implementation can. He blames corruption and a weak bureaucracy for the poor implementation of a free market system. As a result, “there is no honesty and trust in government regarding the system of bazaar.”
Under Article 10 of the Constitution, it is the government’s responsibility to “encourage private enterprise and investment, assure their safety based on the free market system.” A review of the last nine years shows the government has done next to nothing to act on its constitutional duty.
