Lukashenko on price regulation: it’s a matter of justice
The President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, has convened a meeting on improving the system of price regulation and control
Starting the conversation, the Head of State noted, “I want to warn about the main mistake of journalists and civil servants: when the government was instructed to deal with this problem, it was not a question of freezing or even restraining prices. It was about pricing regulation. Somewhere prices were restrained, somewhere prices were growing. You can’t deceive the economy. And there was no stupidity that we are acting against the laws of the economy. There are enough people in this hall who understand the basics of the economy. We understand perfectly well that if we freeze prices where they cannot be frozen, the goods will disappear. No one will work at a loss. Today we turn to this issue publicly in the composition in which the Government proposed. There’re people here who produce goods, I mean ministers, there’re those who sell these goods, there’re people who organise the process in general. Everyone should hear what is about. Some will make decisions, and some will fulfil them."
The President stressed, “I want you to understand that there will be no deviation to the left or right from this problem. This is a moral, political, and strategic question. But the main thing is a matter of justice. Talking to Snopkov [Belarus’ First Deputy PM] almost every other day, I tried to bring to him that this was a moral issue, an issue of justice.
The Head of State explained, “For example, prices for milk have risen. The question is to whose pockets the growth of these prices went. I think the Government understand this. If a milkmaid’s salary rose from Br700 to Br720, it’s ok. However, according to the report of the State Control Committee, we see that this money was taken to the pockets by those who least deserve this. These are not even trading workers, but certain owners, receiving at least $300,000 a month. Is this normal?”
Aleksandr Lukashenko drew attention to the fact that, in general, the previously adopted decisions made it possible to stabilise the price situation, but we shouldn’t be satisfied with what has already been achieved, “Since this is an issue of justice, and the demand for justice has always been high among the Slavs, including among our people, we cannot get away from this issue. This is the number one issue for our people, and there isn’t any populism here. I underline that there’s no populism before the electoral campaign. We constantly turned to this issue, but since the issue was not settled, a strong-willed decision was made.”
