Mohammed Shosanya
The Federal Competition and Consuner Protection Commission(FCCPC),has shut 4U Supermarket located in Ademola Adetukunbo Crescent, Wuse 2, Abuja, over unfair practices discovered in the supermarket.
The enforcement team from FCCPC,who raided the popular supermarket discovered some bags of weaven-laden rice, price disparities in some of the items displaced on the shelves of the supermarket and the actual amount of money charged at the counter as well as soon-to-be expired drugs on the shelves, as some of the infractions.
Addressing newsmen at the premises of the supermarket, Dr. Adamu Abdullahi, Acting Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of FCCPC, condemned these infractions and warned that appropriate sanctions would be applied.
Explaining some of the infractions observed in the Supermarket, Abdullahi said: “Nowadays, we have found out that there is a lot of practice in what is happening especially in markets around the major cities in the country.
“You go to the shelves, the price of the product displayed is different from what appears when you come to pay at the counter.
“It is unacceptable, because you are frisking consumers, and some of the buyers don’t even have price tags attached to them at all.
“So, consumers are at the mercy of the whoever is operating the counter, he can put whatever price he wants there, and that’s what the consumers have to pay.
“These are unacceptable. That’s why we are here to ensure that this practice should no longer continue.
“In addition, we found out another thing that really baffles us. Everybody knows that Stallion Group has been comatose for a very long time. We know that there is no Cappa rice in this country.
“What’s happening is that some people bag their own local rice with Stallion bags, pretending that it is the same Stallion or Capp rice that people are used to. This is wrong.”
He ordered the evacuation of 94 weaven-laden bags of rice to the FCCPC office for further investigation.
He assured that monitoring and investigation of unfair practices as well as hike in the prices of goods and services would be extended to other big cities and general markets across the country.
He further condemned the activities of various associations in the markets, adding that more often than not, they arbitrarily fix prices of goods for their members.
He decried a situation where the value of Naira is appreciating against the dollars and the prices of goods in the markets are still rising higher.
He assured that price tracker would be introduced by the Commission across the country to ensure that consumers are not rippled-off by traders.
He said: “We will go to Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna. And these are places that we have to start with. But all the others will have to follow.
“There is going to be what we now call a price tracker. It will take-off at the beginning of next week, where we will drop prices of commodities across the country.
“And whenever there is any hike in the prices of products, we will now have to find out why. If there’s no reason whatsoever for those prices to go up, we will know that some people are playing hanky panky.
“And we will go to the root of it and discover and find out what it is. And whoever is responsible will bear the consequences”.
