A crackdown on price gouging has begun after Malaysia’s government took licensing power over food bazaars away from cartels and alleged rent seekers in Kuala Lumpur ahead of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting season that is set to begin on Sunday in the country.
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Observed by billions worldwide, the sunrise to sunset fast is one of Islam’s five pillars. While it fosters empathy for the less fortunate, Ramadan is also a celebration of food, with Malaysia’s bustling bazaars offering a wide array of dishes for breaking fast as evening settles.
In Kuala Lumpur, securing a spot at these bazaars is highly competitive, as a month’s sales can rival a year’s earnings elsewhere, according to traders. Licences, issued by city hall to hawker associations for as little as 300 ringgit (US$67), were often resold at inflated prices – sometimes reaching 20,000 ringgit.
These costs trickled down to customers, driving up prices and discouraging many from patronising the bazaars.
Federal Territories Minister Zaliha Mustafa, whose authority supersedes city hall, disrupted this system by cutting out middlemen and auctioning licences directly to “those who are genuinely keen to trade”. On Wednesday, she warned that anyone caught reselling their licence would lose it.
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“We will take stern action against both the seller and the buyer,” she said. “We will rescind the licence and blacklist them.”
Under the new rules, licence holders must be present at their stalls or risk closure. The auction process is also now live-streamed on city hall’s Facebook page for transparency.