PIB to tighten goods watch

November 14, 2009 09:39:25 AM

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Responses have begun to trickle in from interested stakeholders to the Prices and Incomes Board regarding its intent to extend its regulatory powers to 24 more consumer goods.  

The PIB had declared its intention last Friday and gave a 14-day period for the public to respond with their views, in a move that will see the PIB widen its powers over the retail pricing of common consumer goods.

“The intent period is still on at the moment and we have been getting response from interested parties – importers, traders, so that’s coming in slowly,” PIB secretary Lusi Naimawi told Fiji Live.

Regular PIB surveys had alerted the authority to widespread inconsistencies in the retail prices of these goods, prompting Prime Minister and Finance Minister Voreqe Bainimarama to give it the go ahead to bring the 24 items under price control.

“We found a lot of disparities,” said Naimawi. “There were so many reasons why there were price differences but they were not consistent.  For example, we would find that a particular product, of the same brand and pack size, would be cheaper in Labasa than in Suva or in other cases, some items would be cheaper in a supermarket in the Suva-Nausori corridor than in a supermarket within the heart of Suva.  So these concerns were then taken up to the minister who has acted on the request and the two weeks notice to the public is really a procedure under the Counter Inflation Act. We’re halfway into that today and it ends next Friday, after which we will prepare a report based on the submissions received which would then be taken up to the Finance Minister.”

The gazetted intention shows a minimum allowance of a 10 percent mark up on all the 24 items.  

They are:  imported preparations for making beverages, such as Ovaltine, Cocoa, Milo; Rolled oats and Weet Bix; Imported and local tea; baking powder; yeast; baking soda; imported and locally made bathing soap and medicated soap; imported and locally made toothpaste; imported and locally made toiled paper;  laundry soap; soap powder; toothbrush; baby powder and baby cream; baby diapers; mosquito coil; digging fork; digging spade; post hole spade; files; cane knives; roofing tiles and barbed wire.