KUALA LUMPUR: The Keluarga Malaysia Maximum Price Control Scheme (SHMKM) will take effect today till Dec 31 throughout the country as part of the government's efforts to stablise the price of necessities and ensure adequate supply in the market.

The items listed under the scheme include live chicken, standard chicken, super chicken, Grade A, B and C eggs, long beans, red chili, tomato, choy sum, imported round cabbage (from Indonesia and China) as well as cucumber.

Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry (KPDNHEP) enforcement director Azman Adam said the scheme's compliance would involve every stage of the supply chain.

"Twelve items listed in the scheme include three categories of chicken, three grades of chicken eggs, popular vegetables, all of which have the potential to rise in price if controls are not imposed," he told reporters after conducting an inspection at Sri Gombak market, Selangor near here yesterday.

Azman said that with the implementation of the scheme, the ministry's enforcement division would step up monitoring and checks to ensure compliance, involving around 2,200 enforcement officers and 1,000 price monitoring officers throughout the country.

Azman urged consumers to channel complaints to the ministry so that action could be taken if any price hike beyond the ceiling price occurred.

Meanwhile, in KELANTAN, KPDNHEP issued 166 notices from early January till yesterday to traders there who were reportedly selling products at higher prices.

Kelantan director Adnan Abd Rahman said the notices were issued so that the traders could provide reasonable explanations regarding the prices of items that had resulted in customer complaints.

"From the 166 notices issued, 52 involved chicken traders, egg traders (12), vegetable sellers (12) and other traders (90)," he told reporters after checks on the first day of the enforcement of SHMKM at the Rural Transformation Centre at Tunjung, Kelantan.

In MELAKA, state Unity, Community Relations, Manpower and Consumer Affairs Committee chairman Ngwe Hee Sem said 100 ministry enforcement officers and personnel in the state would be mobilised at various stages of the supply chain to conduct checks throughout the duration of the scheme.

"Checks will be conducted daily among producers, retailers and traders to ensure no one raises prices for the 12 necessities listed in the SHMKM," he said, adding that they received six complaints about high prices of eggs and chickens between Jan 1 and Wednesday (Dec 6).

In PERAK, state Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Committee chairman Datuk Abdul Yunus Jamhari said compliance was at good levels when met after conducting a check on the first day of the SHMKM implementation at a supermarket in Ipoh yesterday.

"A total of 176 Perak KPDNHEP enforcement officers and 79 price monitoring officers will continue to to monitor compliance of the scheme throughout the state," he said, adding that the ministry received eight complaints from the public since early November.

-- BERNAMA