The issue of accuracy remains high because it is a very serious issue that plagues the whole world. We have focused on the issue of food, although there are also many other things that are around food or outside of food and their prices have risen much more, Panagiotis Kalofanos, the scientific associate of the Union of Consumer Workers of Greece, told ERT.
Equalization of price increases is a widespread sport in Greece. From research we have done at the Consumer Workers Union, it appears that by mid-2022 and before the subsidy programs started, increases in anticipation of announcements had reached 50%. When the program was implemented we came to see increases of up to 78%, he said.
The State can do a lot, but only if it makes basic restructurings. Because the controls, if we look at the only department of the state that can do real market controls, is DIMEA which has a total of 90 staff, and of these 73 are controllers for all of Greece, he said.
So if each of them has to check about 13,500 companies, you realize that there is no real control.
And that’s why we see deneke oil, within a few months, being sold at 170 euros.
It is true that there are general increases in energy, as we have experienced in previous years. The industrial product that is the solar water heater does have a cost, just like in Europe, we saw the prices rise there too but not as much as here.
Consumer Associations are actually consumer representatives. We do not oppose every government.
A field-to-shelf audit is needed. Controlling the end of the chain through structured stores is rather inefficient. It should have been checked much earlier to be able to have an edge.
