Jakarta – An Indonesian parliamentary commission wants the national logistics agency Bulog to resume its control over the price of rice, a legislator said Monday.

"Since Bulog no longer became an institution to stabilise the price of rice, there is no longer a capability to control prices," the chairman of the agriculture and food commission, Awal Kusuma, was quoted by the Detikcom online news service as saying.

The government abolished Bulog's monopoly over the rice trade in 1998 following pressure from the International Monetary Fund, which is coordinating a five billion dollar aid package.

Kusuma was speaking after the commission decided to ask the government to reinstate Bulog's role. He said that without any controlling mechanism, the price of the nation's staple food could rise without any reason as it has done recently.

Despite assurances that rice stocks are enough to meet demand, the price soared before a government decision last week to raise fuel prices.

After 1998 Bulog launched two special market operations at the government's direction to keep prices down.

This year these will be replaced by a "rice-for-the-poor" program, in which a family can obtain 20 kilograms of rice a month at about a third of the market price for 12 months. There are about 14.7 million poor families across the country.

Bulog Chief Wijarnako Puspoyo said last week that rice should not be left to the free market. He said his agency was seeking to revive its former role in controlling the rice trade and distribution in an effort to stabilise the price.