ALBERT BARON ANSU
The ministry of Trade and industry has shown that it has balls-hence manly enough to check the predatory tendency of some business houses creating undue hardship. Dr. Hingha Sandy caught the limelight in the brazen move to close some building material sores that have been recalcitrant in conforming to fair price determination. We want to see more of this act to bring sanity to the market place. This government prides itself to be listening. And if we should trust the process then the wailing of the masses in the face of harsh economic reality that is not only a reflection of the global crunch must be resolved in terms of ensuring that the businesses people are not recklessly setting prices to worsen the situation of the citizenry. This point is of essence considering the fact that there have been efforts from the government in tax reprieve on certain commodities including rice and building materials. But the impunity characterizing the disregard of this tax reduction by hiking the goods and even dodging tax compliance as in the failure of some businesses to use the devices electronics tax register supplied by NRA to capture Goods and services Tax is another dimension of the problem that is distorting the economy. The perennial tendency of allowing the business class especially the importers to have their way in price determination based on the liberal market regime espoused by this and past government has only being self-serving and making the politicians lame duck to protect the consumers. We don’t expect the action of the ministry of Trade to stop this trend of reckless hiking prices as just a spontaneous and one off affair. It has to be purposive agenda to regulate prices in the spirit of fairness to consumers. This agenda must be extended in the countryside using tact to arrest and even prosecute the profiteering whole seller and importers who are actually contributing to the cascading hike at the level of retail. For once consumer protection must be prioritized. Revenue collection has to be effective. This is not suggesting that the government must create conditions for the importers to transfer the burden of high taxation on the consumers. Making the economy conducive is bound to be a multistakeholder engagement that will not exempt the transporters. We recognize the fact that cost is incurred in hauling goods from one point to another and this bound to create price variance from place to place. It is in this regard that the commercial drivers must be monitored and also regulated. For those transporters in the interior their justification for over charging is as result of the extortionist disposition of the Police at check points. We must factor this issue in the difficult question of creating a healthy business climate. This dog eat dog syndrome must be decisvely tackled in this country.