[OPINION] 2024: A year of energy regulatory capture, cartels, and a cabal of cronies

As we rush to close a year of high headline inflation indices and pray that 2025 offers better prospects for the economy, we focus on an ever-recurring curse and a refraining mantra of resolutions that our officials have never gotten around to doing.

High food prices, specifically the price of a kilo of rice, tempered only by importations where the government absorbs the losses, and the cost of energy, the price of imported fuels we depend on and the price of electricity — these have...