The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has issued a stern warning to the participants in the food sector, saying that it will not condone any form of price gouging, hoarding, or conspiracy to inflate food prices.
The acting executive vice chairman of FCCPC, Adamu Abdullahi, said in a statement on Friday that the commission had observed that some distributors and retailers were exploiting the consumers’ anxiety and vulnerability by engaging in unfair and illegal practices that restricted and distorted competition in the food market.
He said that such practices violated both the moral and legal code and would attract swift and severe legal consequences.
“The commission’s surveillance efforts suggested that food chain distribution and retail level participants were engaging in conspiracy, price gouging, hoarding and other unfair tactics and strategies. This is to restrict the supply of food, manipulate and inflate the price of food in an indiscriminate manner; this conduct violates both moral and legal code. The use of undue influence, imbalance in negotiating power, unfair and similar conduct in the marketing and supply of goods and services is contrary to the FCCPA, will be penalised under law,” he said.
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He urged the businesses involved in such activities to stop immediately or face the full force of the law.
He also commented on the recent Federal High Court order that directed the federal government to fix the prices of certain food commodities, saying that it was an unusual practice in a free market.
He said that the commission was not mandated to regulate prices, but in rare situations, it could advise the president to fix the prices of some goods and services based on empirical evidence.
He said that the commission believed that empirical data about the cause of unfair prices in the food sector must be the basis for any enforcement exercise.
He advised the consumers to report any illegal, exclusionary, or restrictive practices that contributed to unfair food prices to the commission through its designated portal. #FCCPC
(NAN)