Like a veritable undercover agent, Monica Schenone tried to pass unnoticed through the aisles of a supermarket in Buenos Aires, sneaking photographs of price tags.
The 52-year-old homemaker is part of a group of ordinary Argentines who volunteer their time to police stores’ adherence to price limits suggested by the government to curtail spiraling inflation.
She feels “like James Bond,” Schenone said, as she tried to blend in with shoppers in the capital of Argentina — which last year recorded its highest inflation rate in three decades at 94.8 percent, one of the highest in the world.
Photo: Reuters
Prices for daily staples rose monthly, even weekly last year, with milk prices climbing more than fourfold and those for cooking oil and sugar more than fivefold, the Abeceb economic consultancy said.
In a bid to rein in galloping price rises, the government’s “Precios Justos” (Fair Prices) program applies a 3.2 percent monthly price hike limit to about 2,000 essential products including flour, rice, milk and sunflower oil.
“I am in shock,” Schenone told reporters as she exited a supermarket in the San Cristobal neighborhood where she had executed a covert price check she said left her horrified.
“A bar of soap that went from 231.40 pesos to 496 pesos [US$1.21 to US$2.58], that does not seem to me to be a 3 percent increase,” she said. “It seems to me that we are still being taken for fools.”
Precios Justos runs from this month to the end of June, and covers food and medicines, but also soap, clothing, shoes and school gear, among other items.
Joining is voluntary, but producers and vendors who do sign up to the price agreement risk fines for non-compliance of up to 71 million pesos from the Argentine Ministry of Economy.
Precios Justos “aims to reduce inflationary expectations and ... recover the purchasing power of the population’s income,” the government has said.
All major supermarket chains, as well as Argentina’s massive COPAL food and drinks producers’ group, have signed up to the price control program.
However, most smaller, independent stores that serve millions of Argentines remain outside of the framework, sometimes charging prices double the suggested rate, consulting firm Nielsen IQ said.
Schenone and about two dozen others members of an activist group called “La Dignidad” (Dignity) have taken it upon themselves to check up on Precios Justos compliance in Buenos Aires.
She said they regularly observe serious breaches.
Most often, price-controlled products are simply not stocked, but there are also many cases of prices above the agreed limit, she said.
“What I feel is a lot of impotence, a lot of anger. I feel that, as always, those of us in the lower classes continue to be screwed,” Schenone told reporters.
The price checker and her peers submit their findings to La Dignidad, which publishes periodic reports.
There is also a government-sponsored app for consumers to report breaches.
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