Price hike: FCCPC visits Osun markets, meets market leaders

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) on Friday visited markets in Osun on a fact-finding mission to ascertain the factors responsible for the hike in food prices.

Officials of the Commission visited Olufi Market in Ayedaade Local Government and Ifon Market in Orolu Local Government areas of the state.

The FCCPC met with market leaders and traders in the two markets to find out the reasons for the daily increase in food prices.

Mrs Janet Odo, FCCPC South-West Zonal Coordinator, said the visit was to interact with traders’ associations and marketers to ascertain the factors responsible for the continuous hike in food prices in the country.

Odo said the commission’s surveillance findings revealed that wholesalers and retailers were allegedly engaging in conspiracy, price gouging, hoarding, and distorting competition in markets across the country.

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She said the visit was to verify the allegations and also sensitize traders on fair market prices.

Odo said the FCCPC officials were able to interact with traders, consumers, and those in supply chains to determine the main cause of the hike in food prices.

“The whole essence is to ensure that the competition and consumers’ protection aspect of our mandate is being executed to ensure that consumers get fair pricing of food commodities.

“We have been able to gather some facts in the two markets visited, and it will be collated, reviewed, and used as a point of advising the Federal Government.

“The Commission’s priority remains to unlock the markets and address key consumer protection and competition issues affecting the prices of commodities in the food sector,” she said.

In her response, Mrs. Bukola Ogunyinka, leader of the market women association at Olufi Market, said the hike in food prices was not the fault of the traders.

Ogunyinka said that since the removal of the fuel subsidy, prices of food items have been increasing.

“We are not the ones inflating the prices. We sell what we buy. A bag of brown beans we bought for N120,000 last week is now N160,000.

“The government should do something about this,” she said.