Deploy rolling stores to sell goods at discounted prices, QC councilor urges
Published Feb 16, 2019 01:29 pm
By Chito Chavez
With the rising prices, a Quezon City councilor asked the National Food Authority (NFA) to re-deploy rolling stores that sell assorted prime commodities at discounted prices.
Third District Councilor Allan Benedict Reyes said the NFA “should earnestly give the idea much thought’’ as the public continues to reel from rising costs of basic commodities.
Quezon City Third District Councilor Allan Benedict Reyes (QUEZON CITY COUNCIL / MANILA BULLETIN)
Sharing the sentiments of the poor, Reyes insisted the least the government can do is “do away with middlemen and unscrupulous traders and deploy rolling stores that sell basic goods at highly discounted prices.
Reyes deemed the deployment of the “discount movable stores’’ as always timely not only during election year citing the skyrocketing inflation rate has “always severely affected the poor’’.
To protect the consumers, Reyes wants concerned government agencies and law enforcement groups to conduct surprise and routine inspections on the city’s retail and wholesale outlets including wet markets as the complaint of rigged weighing scales have been a subject of numerous complaints.
“It would be a double whammy for the victims of the typhoon and their benefactors to be victimized by crooks. The government should run after vendors using unregistered and defective weighing scales,’’ Reyes said.
Agnes Francisco a resident of Quirino District of Quezon City complained that the 1/2half kilo of red onions she bought from a vendor of a privately owned wet market was 100 grams short.
“At P40 per kilo I lost P4 pesos. If their sale reaches 100 kilos per day they are duping the people of 10 kilos per day,’’ Francisco said.
Reyes added that fast moving and low-cost items like noodles, bread, rice tomato sauce, processed meat products, canned goods and other similar items should be made affordable to the poor anytime of the year.
Aside from canned goods, noodles and rice, Reyes said that the rolling stores can also sell fresh pork, laundry soap, bath soap, toothpaste, cooking oil and other household necessities at reduced prices.
Reyes appealed to retail and wholesale store owners to sell their products at reasonable prices to make them affordable even to the poor members of the society.
With the underprivileged unable to go to big named supermarkets, some are forced to purchase commodities and merchandises at exorbitant costs from shrewd businessmen running small stores.
Quezon City Third District Councilor Allan Benedict Reyes (QUEZON CITY COUNCIL / MANILA BULLETIN)
Sharing the sentiments of the poor, Reyes insisted the least the government can do is “do away with middlemen and unscrupulous traders and deploy rolling stores that sell basic goods at highly discounted prices.
Reyes deemed the deployment of the “discount movable stores’’ as always timely not only during election year citing the skyrocketing inflation rate has “always severely affected the poor’’.
To protect the consumers, Reyes wants concerned government agencies and law enforcement groups to conduct surprise and routine inspections on the city’s retail and wholesale outlets including wet markets as the complaint of rigged weighing scales have been a subject of numerous complaints.
“It would be a double whammy for the victims of the typhoon and their benefactors to be victimized by crooks. The government should run after vendors using unregistered and defective weighing scales,’’ Reyes said.
Agnes Francisco a resident of Quirino District of Quezon City complained that the 1/2half kilo of red onions she bought from a vendor of a privately owned wet market was 100 grams short.
“At P40 per kilo I lost P4 pesos. If their sale reaches 100 kilos per day they are duping the people of 10 kilos per day,’’ Francisco said.
Reyes added that fast moving and low-cost items like noodles, bread, rice tomato sauce, processed meat products, canned goods and other similar items should be made affordable to the poor anytime of the year.
Aside from canned goods, noodles and rice, Reyes said that the rolling stores can also sell fresh pork, laundry soap, bath soap, toothpaste, cooking oil and other household necessities at reduced prices.
Reyes appealed to retail and wholesale store owners to sell their products at reasonable prices to make them affordable even to the poor members of the society.
With the underprivileged unable to go to big named supermarkets, some are forced to purchase commodities and merchandises at exorbitant costs from shrewd businessmen running small stores.