INQUIRER Global Nation

TACLOBAN CITY — Amid reports of overpricing of rice by some retailers in the region, the National Food Authority (NFA) in Eastern Visayas urged local governments to activate price monitoring councils.

Antonio Adorable, NFA assistant regional manager explained that theycould not act against overpricing of commercial rice.

But he said that local governments could penalize the retailers taking advantage of the tight supply by increasing their prices.

He added that the price of NFA rice remained at P18.25 per kilo.

However, Adorable noted that based on their monitoring, a kilo of a commercial rice recently increased by P2 a kilo.

He disclosed that since the start of the year, they apprehended 62 NFA-accredited retailers for committing various violations.

The NFA found that 12 of the 62 NFA retailers were overpricing NFA rice but the most common violation was the failure to display the price tag.

Adorable said the P18.25 price per kilo set by the NFA for its rice already covered production and distribution costs and therefore, stores had no justification to increase the price.

There are about 6,000 traders, millers and retailers accredited by the NFA in the region to get rice allocation of at least five up to 50 bags, depending on the needs of their areas and their locations.

Adorable said Eastern Visayas had enough rice supply so people should not go into "panic buying."

He said the NFA-8 expected to receive about 2.2 million bags of rice for Eastern Visayas this year.

On top of this allocation, Adorable said the region also expected to receive an additional 1.9 million of bags.

According to Adorable, they have 213,000 bags of rice stocked in their different warehouses. The NFA downloads 6,903 bags of rice a day to all their accredited distributors.

Based on NFA records, it unloaded 1.675 million bags of rice in the market or 13.51 percent of the 11.800 million bags consumed in 2007. /Inquirer