The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has expressed its readiness to wield the big stick against any trade association, whose members are found to be building consensus around prices.
The Executive Vice Chairman of the agency, Mr. Babatunde Irukera gave the warning, on Tuesday, at a workshop attended by stakeholders in the nation’s food and agriculture sector, tagged ‘Fair Food Prices in Nigeria,’ held in Lagos.
The FCCPC’s boss stated that while the agency recognizes the rights of an individual, or group of individuals, in any trade, to form trade unions, to regulate the activities of their members, it would however not allow such groups to become a cartel, where prices of goods or services rendered are fixed.
Using the PoS operators and the Bakers’ Association as examples, Irukera stated that the agency would not allow the two trade unions to build price consensus, as is presently planned.
He warned that the Commission would go all out to sanction any PoS operators, for price consensus and unfair pricing, after it had warned their umbrella body, the Association of Mobile Money and Bank Agents in Nigeria (AMMBAN), against doing so.
“The challenge we have when it comes to pricing is that the vulnerable are the enemies of the vulnerable, as evident in the activities of the PoS operators, of late. The intention is to hold us hostage, and we will not allow that. The agency will not allow any association or trade union to build consensus around prices.
“The more reason the Commission will not hesitate to sanction them, since they’ve been warned against the illegality of taking such action,” he stated.
Irukera described the Workshop, organized by Consumer International, in conjunction with FCCPC, as apt, since it captures the intention of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration’s efforts at finding a lasting solution to the issue of food crisis, being experienced in this part of the globe.
According to him, some of the issues presently being experienced around food, border on unfair pricing of food items, a development, he added, had made the Workshop very imperative.
He, however, called on participants to use the opportunity of the platform to unlock some soft factors, surrounding availability and affordability of food in the country.
“For instance, why is that the first, which are the farmers, and the last lines, the consumers, in agric business are still poor, despite the high prices of food items in the country? What this simply means is that there are still some puzzles to be unravelled, and I believe this forum provides participants with the opportunity to do that,” he added.
Explaining the rationale behind the workshop, the Project Specialist, Consumer International, Ms. Davine Minayo, stated that the forum had become imperative since agriculture remains the backbone of any economy.
She identified unfair pricing as a major reason why prices of food have continued to go down in other continents of the world, but with Africa experiencing the exact opposite.
“We, at Consumer International, believe there is the need to have that conversation that will unravel the mystery surrounding the issue of food pricing in the continent. We need to find out why food prices have continued to go down around the world, except in Africa, where they continue to skyrocket,” she added.
She, therefore, called for more collaborative efforts among organizations, to enable them to establish the evidence of unfair food pricing, how to protect consumers in the food space, and what stakeholders must do differently to ensure fair food pricing.
