The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

Shop owners mutiny against the Syrian regime laws .. and “Consumer Protection Department” closes tens of shops in the state’s provinces

Areas under control of the regime forces witnessed significant increase in food and supply stuffs in conjunction with the collapse of the Syrian Pound, where the exchange rate exceeded 800 SYL against the US dollar, sources informed the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that the employees in the Ministry of Supply conduct daily patrols to monitor prices in all provinces under the Syrian regime authority.

While a state of mutiny prevailed against laws in provinces of Daraa, Latakia and Damascus, sources confirmed that many shops are closed as a result of successive increase in prices, in order to preserve their contents.

SOHR was also informed that tens of shop owners paid high fines as they sold goods according to the exchange rate of the Syrian pound against the U.S. dollar, and did not abide by the price issued by the Ministry of Supply, for the same reason, other shops were also sealed.

The regime’s “Internal Trade and Consumer Protection Department” launched a 24-hour communication initiative, to receive all complaints related to markets movement.

On November 23, SOHR published that in respond to the collapse of the Syrian pound, the Syrian regime issued a legislative decree which stipulates an increase to the salaries of all the state’s employees “Public Sector”, at the time when the crisis of nature gas, fuel, electricity and other crises started to emerge.

According to sources of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights; 150000 Syrian pounds is the average of a middle-income family’s expenses, in which expenses have doubled 10 times considering where they were before 2011, when the exchange rate recorded less than 50 SYL against the US dollar, but now, and with the collapse of the currency to more than 700 SYL against the US dollar, the regime is still following plans that are away from the reality in confronting the crisis of currency collapse.

The regime issues decrees that are in the interest of the civilian and military employees, while the unemployed are the ones who remain suffering from a double-edged crisis, where they are ignored by the regime on one hand, and share the deteriorating living reality on the other.

According to the sources; the legislative decree came after a series of deliberations started in the middle of this year between the relevant government teams and commissions, then discussing all data, and after the outcomes were certified by the economic commission and raised to the Council of Ministers at its last meeting held on the 17th of November 2019.

After all of these procedures, the Syrian regime issued the legislative decree No. 23 for the year 2019 which stipulates for increasing the salaries of the civilian and military employees by SYP 20,000 after adding the livelihood compensation to the base salaries as a part of them.

The regime also issued the legislative decree no. 24 for the year 2019 which stipulates for increasing the pensions of the retired civilian and military employees by 16,000 SYP after adding the livelihood compensation to the pension.

In the same context, the Syrian regime’s loyalists welcomed the decree, in fact, this decree does not render any services to the ordinary citizen who remains the victim of the fall in currency value along with daily increase in prices, on the other hand, this increase in salaries will not change the purchasing capacity for a government employee in the shadow of the fall in exchange rate of the Syrian pound.