Competition Commission Warns Stores Against Price Hiking During Lockdown

The Competition Commission on Monday said it would go after all stores found to be inflating the prices of essential goods during the lockdown.

A pharmacy in Boksburg was penalised after the commission discovered the company placed a 150% mark-up on face masks. The Competition Tribunal ordered Centrum Pharmacy to drastically reduce their prices and donate essential goods to at least two old age homes.

These included hand sanitisers, face masks, and surgical gloves all worth over R25,000.

The Competition Commission’s Sipho Ngwema said to Eyewitness News on Monday: “As long as we think at face value it does contravene the law, we investigate so that we make sure that consumers are protected. And therefore, we continue to intervene and to make sure that those that are doing wrong they correct their ways and consumers are not cheated.”

EWN