The Independent Consumer and Competition Commission is urging business houses to start passing on some of their lower operating costs to consumers.
The Commissioner and CEO of ICCC Paulus Ain made this call in light of the significant fall in the retail fuel prices since last year.
He said that from July 2014 to November 2015, the global crude oil prices had decreased by a total of 69%, while over the same period the domestic retail prices for petrol, diesel and kerosene had decreased cumulatively by 36.1%, 48.0% and 47.6% respectively. On average the domestic fuel prices had decreased by 43.9%.
The fall in domestic retail prices had benefited the business houses and general fuel consumers.
“As fuel is one of the major inputs in the production and provision of goods and services, the businesses and industries that use a lot of fuel in their operations have incurred lower operating costs as a result,” Mr Ain said.
Commissioner Ain said that the lower fuel prices and thus lower overheads must eventually translate to lower prices of some goods and services.
He added that it was a concern that instead of translating some of their lower operating costs to lower retail prices, business houses had been taking advantage of the drop in fuel prices to make excess profits.
“The commission is also aware that there are also other factors that contribute 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, consumers should now be paying less for some goods and services,” Mr. Ain stated.