Price gouging prevented during Covid-19, competition watchdog claims
SA’s competition watchdog said it has prevented widespread price gouging, — the exploitive price increases for goods and services during a disaster — since the outbreak of Covid-19 and has settled more than 30 cases since March.
Patel granted block exemptions to the healthcare, banking, retail property and hotel sectors that allowed market players to collaborate and co-ordinate their response to the pandemic, “with the goal of mitigating the negative and social affect of the crisis”, said Qhawe Mahlalela, a senior economist at the commission.
In the healthcare sector, which has been at the coalface of efforts aimed at responding to the coronavirus pandemic, the block exemptions resulted in healthcare providers collaborating on patient allocation between hospitals, resource allocation, stock availability and procurement and distribution of the goods.
In June last year the Competition Tribunal found Babelegi Workwear guilty of price gouging and fined the company R76,000 for increasing a box of face masks from R41 to R500 per box, an 888% increase.The Competition Commission has since settled 36 cases.
“We parked all cases in our books which were not related to Covid-19 or price gouging. We set up a hotline … we had one megateam dedicated to running these cases. The staff was working six days a week, managers were working on Sundays as well, and we forfeited all public holidays,” said Qobo.
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