02 Apr 2020

Officer warns pharmacies against price hiking

The Kanye Principal Consumer Officer, Ms Lumbidzani Pheto has expressed concern about some retailers who charge exorbitant prices for products in high demand such as sanitisers .

Ms Pheto, who was speaking in an interview during inspection visits to pharmacies in Kanye and Moshupa recently, cautioned pharmacists against incongruous prices, saying they should not take advantage and profit from COVID-19 pandemic fears.

Since the outbreak, people have gone on panic shopping, which some retailers have taken advantage of to charge exorbitant prices for items like face masks, disinfectants and hand sanitisers.

She noted that the office had gone all out to ensure that shops maintained a fair pricing policy.

Ms Pheto said, although they had not established how much such items cost before the outbreak, they were aware that prices were bound to go up as a result of the demand, but the expectation was to have products priced reasonably.

“We are fully aware that there is high demand for surgical face masks and hand sanitisers, but we will not allow retailers to hike prices unreasonably,” she said.

Acknowledging that it was difficult to establish the margin, she however said government was concerned about the unreasonable pricing.

Ms Pheto further shared that so far, the prices of basic foods such as rice and mealie meal had not changed, adding that they would closely monitor the situation.

She also noted that food served at restaurants was also priced normally.

Mr Afzal Aslam, Pharmacist at Hi-Care, Moshupa, said they had experienced low sales of sanitisers as the prices had gone remarkably higher, because suppliers had also raised the prices.

“Currently, the stock, which is available in the medical wholesalers is inadequate to supply all the pharmacies throughout the country, which means that they were not prepared for the pandemic,” he said.

“Right now there are no sanitisers and face masks in most pharmacies. This means that the wholesalers did not plan, and as such cannot meet our demand,” he added.

He therefore proposed that going forward, government should consider intermediaries in the pharmaceutical supply chain.

“Currently medical wholesalers are the ones who supply pharmacies with scheduled and unscheduled medicine, which is part of the reason for shortage of products and rise in prices,” he said.

Mr Aslam therefore pleaded with the government to allow pharmacies to import unscheduled medicines directly, as that may reduce the middlemen which would benefit consumers.

He noted that they were striving to ensure that the commodities remained affordable. Ends