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The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission on Thursday carried out an enforcement raid at two supermarkets in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, to ensure adherence to price display and quantity regulations.
The Executive Secretary of the Commission, Dr Adamu Abdullahi, said the exercise targeted at reducing the high cost of food commodities nationwide, would be extended to Lagos, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Kano, Kaduna and other cities in the coming weeks.
Abdullahi said unannounced inspections would be carried out at stores and open markets across different states as part of measures to control the abnormal price surges which had failed to respond to the appreciation of the naira in recent weeks.
The FCCPC boss further disclosed plans to raid some open major markets on Friday (today) in the FCT to checkmate the arbitrary increase in prices of consumables by traders.
During the exercise that lasted several hours, the FCCPC sealed 4U Supermarket and evacuated 33 bags of suspected fake stallion and caprice rice filled with weevils from one of the branches of the same supermarket located at 58 Adetokunbo Ademola Crescent, Wuse II.
Earlier on Thursday, the commission had ordered its operatives to intensify monitoring of both formal and informal markets to identify businesses engaged in unnecessary inflation of prices for required enforcement action.
The move was in direct response to concerns raised by consumers about the rising costs of goods, which go against the appreciation of the naira.
Food inflation has been a recurring issue influencing the steady increase of Nigeria’s headline inflation of 33.2 per cent, and an unprecedented food inflation rate of 40 per cent in March 2024.
The situation was exacerbated by the extensive fall of the naira against the dollar in January and February leading to the soaring prices of essential goods and services, raising the cost of living to an all-time high.
Although the Presidency had vowed to continue its campaign against racketeers, urging Nigerians to expect a stronger naira, a significant drop in the prices of essential commodities has been elusive.
In a statement on Thursday, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, disclosed that President Bola Tinubu had directed consumer protection agencies to ensure that the local prices reflect the rising value of the naira.
“But there is still much work to be done and this is not a time for celebration. It is a time for doubling down and working harder to ensure that inflation is sustainably brought down in short order.
“Consumer protecting regulatory agencies must step up enforcement to ensure that our people are not short-changed by enterprises that fail to reflect the prevailing exchange rates on the pricing of goods and services across the board.
“As our private and publicly-owned refineries resume operations between now and the first quarter of 2025, the nation’s cash position will dramatically improve to the extent that Nigerians can rightly expect a stronger Naira and a fair reflection of its strength in the prices of commodities in the market place,” said Ngelale.
The Presidency also assured Nigerians of better days ahead, saying the benefits of the reforms will be “more evident as the administration progresses.’’
“Once you join the rising spending power of Africa’s largest population with the historic availability of trillions of naira for consumer credit that will bolster the real sector, you will see why Nigerians will be most pleased that they elected a financial engineer and businessman as president by the end of his first term in office, even as the signs are increasingly more evident today,” the Presidential spokesman stated.
Responding to the charge, the FCCPC boss in an interview with The PUNCH on Thursday stated that the sharp practices of the supermarkets were injurious to the consumers despite a stronger naira and reduced cost of production.
He said the 4U supermarket was selling rice from Stallion and Caprice, even though these companies ceased rice production in August 2022.
It was also discovered that the prices of some products on the shelf were different from the prices at the selling point, while some commodities had no price tags.
Abdullahi further explained that necessary sanctions would be meted out to culpable persons after investigations.
He vowed to take firm measures against companies caught engaging in unfair market practices like price manipulation, excessive pricing or cartel formation.
On February 16, the FCCPC sealed Sahad Stores in the Garki area of Abuja for allegedly engaging in “misleading pricing and lack of transparency in pricing.”
Speaking on the ongoing operation, Abdullahi said, “This exercise is in continuation of our efforts to ensure that prices in the market reflect what is displayed. Nowadays, we have found out that there is a lot of pretence in what’s happening especially for markets around the major cities in the country.
“You have seen what we have done earlier with other supermarkets and sealing them but despite these efforts, some supermarkets still engage in this practice. You go to a shelf and the price displayed is different from what appears when you come to pay at the counter.
“That is not acceptable because you are frisking consumers and some of the items don’t have price tags attached to them at all. So, you are at the mercy of whoever is operating the counter. He can input whatever price you want there, and that’s not acceptable. That’s why we’re here so that practice should no longer continue.
“In addition, we found out another thing that really baffles us. Nobody knows that stallion group which has been comatose for a very long time is still in the market. What’s happening is that some people bagged their local rice in the guise that it is the same stallion or kappa that people are used to that people are buying, which is wrong.
“You are still frisking consumers, you’re collecting from them what is not due because what you want to pretend to be selling is not what you’re selling and that is bad. It is when people get home to cook that they would see they bought something else.
“Essentially, we are evacuating all the rice and they (4U Supermarket) would come to explain to us how they got that rice and we would get to the root of it. Both the producers and baggers are culpable and we would take necessary sanctions as appropriate with the Act establishing FCCPC. Every violation has its sanction and we would look at our books along with them.”
Section 69 of the FCCPC Act, 2018, states, “A person who violates any of the provisions of this part commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding N50m. A body corporate that violates any of the provisions of this part commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding 10 per cent of the turnover of the body corporate in the business year preceding the date of the commission of the offence.”
Due to the limited staff strength, Abdullahi noted that the commission would target select stores and open markets during the enforcement exercise.
He added, “We can’t go to all supermarkets at the same time due to our (limited) staff strength. We will be going to other general markets from tomorrow (Friday) and you will see us in the open market and what we want to do is find out what associations are doing about it.
“Cartels are not allowed in our law and we will make sure that food and commodity prices come down in this country and this is part of that effort to ensure both formal and formal markets comply with the rules of engagement. The dollar has come down and prices of goods must also come down.’’
Continuing, he stated, “Yes, this is happening in Abuja in the meantime but the last time we carried out the operation in Port-Harcourt and Lagos. This time around, Kano is on our radar. We would go to Kano, Port-Harcourt again, Lagos, Ibadan, and Kaduna and these are places that we have to check out first and other states would follow.’’
The FCCPC boss announced plans to introduce a price tracker to address the extortion of consumers by major supermarkets in the country.
“There is going to be what we call a price tracker and it will be domiciled with the Bank of Industry and it will take off the beginning of next week. In that way, we can track the prices of commodities across the country and whenever there is any hike in products we would find out why and if it is not worth it, we would know that there is hanky-panky and we can stop it fast,” Abdullahi added.
In an interview with newsmen after the raid, the General Manager of 4U Supermarket, Yunusa Yusuf, who took responsibility for the fake foreign rice, promised to expose the suppliers.
He pledged to abide by FCCPC regulations on consumer rights.
The president of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Gabriel Idahosa described the move as shocking and an overreach of the powers of the FCCPC.
Idahosa further stated that it did not fall within the purview of the government to regulate the prices of products in the market.
He said, “That is a very crude behaviour. The government, at any point, should not fix prices for any products. Any person who has done business knows that when there is a change in the price of your inputs, you need to sell whatever you have at the old prices to sell your stock before you go and buy at the new prices and then be able to sell at reduced prices to customers.
Consumers should not expect any immediate reduction in prices. Replacement costs of those products that are in the warehouses and markets are what the market will have to sell because the price at which they bought it must be fully recovered before they can go and buy at new prices.”
On his part, the Chief Executive Officer of the Centre the Promotion of Private Enterprise, Muda Yusuf faulted the FCCPC. He emphasised that raiding the marketplace to enforce prices fell outside the jurisdiction of the commission.
Yusuf said, “That is ridiculous. What kind of crude action is that? That is price control. It is not their business.”
Also speaking, a facilitator with the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, Ikenna Nwosu, said.
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