Consumers watchdog urges businesses to comply

The consumers’ watchdog, the Independent Consumer and Competition Commission (ICCC), will start controlling some of the goods and services costs if business houses don’t comply with prices set by ICCC.

Commissioner Paulius Ain revealed this today at a media conference in Port Moresby.

Ain made the statement after noting that many business houses were not sharing the benefits of reduced costs of fuel with their customers.

“When worse come to worse, we may look at, in the future, controlling some prices of these goods.

“We will take them back and price control and going back to the old days,” he said.

He urged the businesses to cooperate with them and help the customers and not be benefiting themselves.

He said the ICCC had noted that from July 2014 to November 2015, the global crude oil prices had fallen by a total of 69%, while over the same period the domestic retail prices for petrol, diesel and kerosene had dropped cumulatively by 36.1% ,48% and 47.6% respectively.

On average, he said the domestic fuel prices had fallen by 43.9%

Ain added that the commission was also aware that there were other factors that contributed  to the high operating business costs in the country but given the cumulative decrease of 43.9% in fuel prices over the last 15 months, benefits from these lower fuel costs should be considered to be shared with the consumers.

 

Author: 
Freddy Mou