The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has urged consumers to reject any form of exploitation by service providers.
Mr Tunji Bello, the Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of FCCPC, stated this at a meeting with stakeholders in Kano on Wednesday.
The meeting is aimed at addressing the issue of exploitative pricing of goods and services in Nigeria.
Bello said that the commission was tackling price fixing, price gouging, and other illegal acts punishable by imprisonment and fines.
He explained that the commission chose dialogue over enforcement due to the current economic hardships, stressing that these illegal acts constitute crimes under the FCCPC Act.
The chairman urged stakeholders to balance their actions, as the commission seeks to protect consumers and promote fair businesses.
Earlier, Dr Adamu Abdullahi, the Executive Commissioner Operations of FCCPC, said that the commission was in Kano to enlighten the people on the problems in the production of goods and services.
He said these include artificial scarcity, inflation created by marketers and hiding behind insecurity and high prices of oil in the country.
“There are challenges of insecurity in the country, rise in the price of fuel and high price of foreign exchange, these are not enough reasons for goods and services to be high and scarce.
“If these things exist, our handiwork also does more. It is the marketers that create artificial scarcity and make goods expensive at the point of retail.
“Even the issue of insecurity is not enough to make things as expensive and as scarce as they are today.
“Farmers now produce cash crops and very little of food crops because they are in high demand across the borders.
“Dangote refinery has come on board, but the prices of oil have gone even higher. On this issue we have to understand what the government is doing.
“I assure you that everything will come down, whatever peaks will definitely come down,” he said.( NAN)
