Between january and april, more than 11,300 inspections have been carried out in different agents of the food supply chain, to establish or rule out abusive practices and, failing that, denounce them before the Sanctioning Court of the Defensoría del Consumidor.

He also stated that, as part of the follow-up being given to the anti-crisis measures implemented since march of last year by the Central Government, the Sanction Tribunal is following up on 118 processes against the same number of suppliers denounced for unjustified price increases and obstructing investigations by the Defesnoría del Consumidor.

Additionally, he indicated that this instance has sanctioned 49 companies with fines totaling more than US$156,000, after proving infractions related to unjustified price increases and obstructing the investigations of the Defensoría del Consumidor teams.

This tuesday, one of the companies inspected was the storage and distribution plant of Arrocera San Francisco, in San Marcos, south of San Salvador, where it was confirmed that for the moment any risk of shortage of beans, rice and corn is ruled out.

The inspections and audits have been activated in coordination with the Ministry of Finance, to "guarantee fair prices to the consumer and avoid abuses by companies that make use of the import tax exemption", detailed Salazar, who added that they will be maintained and extended to other suppliers, for as long as necessary to "avoid abuses against our population".

Translated by: A.M