The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) can’t regulate consumer prices, Executive Vice. Chairman of the commission, Babatunde Irukera, has said.
In a statement issued in Abuja, the commission said the law did not mandate the commission to regulate prices of commodities because Nigeria is operating a free market economy.
Irukera said, “When the President accepts the recommendation and adopts it, it will be gazetted. It will only be for a limited period. Other than that, we don’t regulate price.”
To buttress his point, Irukera gave an example of how the commission prevented the exploitation of consumers by a supermarket selling hand sanitisers and face masks at manifestly unjust prices during the COVID-19 saga.
He said, “We investigated one popular supermarket and what they had done, a hand sanitiser that was sold for N490 in the morning by noon, the price had increased to N1,400. By 5pm it was N3,400.
“We looked at their inventory, it was showing that they had 45 pieces left, but we couldn’t find it on the shelf or store. They hoarded that for the next day when the prices would keep going up.
“It wasn’t difficult to come to a determination that that was exploitative, manifestly unjust and unreasonable, because there was no rational explanation for that progressive increase.”
He added, “You could find a circumstantial evidentiary basis, which is important for controlling COVID-19 and COVID-19 is now in town. So, there’s a method and a matrix to decide whether something is excessive.”
On the recent price adjustments by pay television provider, MultiChoice, The FCCPC boss said when MultiChoice raised the prices of their products and services, it was compelled to introduce a one-year price lock that enabled subscribers to pay the same tariff for one year as long as subscription renewal was made before the due date.
