Chairman of House of Representatives’ Committee on Defence, Hon. Babajimi Benson on Tuesday underscored the urgent need for relevant regulatory agencies to protect indigenous businesses from unhealthy competition with their foreign counterparts.
Hon. Benson gave the charge during a media chat in Abuja, specifically urging authorities of Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) to immediately halt the unfair business practices against Air Peace, Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Limited and other business concerns from unhealthy practices by their foreign competitors.
Hon. Benson said: “I moved a motion on this recently and my intention was to ensure that there is fairness, justice and good conscience in doing business in Nigeria.
“It will be very unfair if there are conspiracies by foreign companies to undermine Nigerian companies. What we frown against is, these companies coming together to offer predatory prices that are below the market rates in order to edge out Nigerian own enterprises.
“These companies don’t do these things in their own countries. If we don’t check it, It can stifle Nigerian businesses by reducing their prices and then, they jerk up their prices.
“It is speculated that this happened recently against Air Peace. At some points, tickets from Lagos to London were selling as high as N4 million. All of a sudden, a local company came in and all these companies just dropped prices lower than what Air Peace was offering.
“So, you ask yourself, why this sudden drop? Was it aimed to undermine Air Peace?” he asked.
He explained that the motion which was considered and passed on the floor of the House last week, was to draw the attention of Nigerians of possible collision by some business operators to undermine public interest.
“My motion is not to protect Air Peace alone but to protect Nigerians and let them know that there are opportunities for operators in a certain industry to collude and whenever it pleases them, some will lower their prices and whenever it pleases others, they all collude.
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“We spoke about Dangote, there is also need to investigate what happened because if Dangote Refinery is the reason for this non-sale of crude oil; is this not part of a predatory way of ensuring that Nigeria keeps importing and Dangote refinery is left out?
“The FCCPC should also be watchful of this and make sure that if there is a gang up to stifle Nigeria, they should quickly step into it or do an investigative hearing in order for the world to be aware that Nigeria is informed about predatory pricing strategies.”
While responding to issue bothering on State Police, the Lagos lawmaker argued that state policing should be optional.
“If I have power to make legislation, I will say state policing is not by force. If you want it, apply.
“If a Governor applies for state policing, the authority vetting it, may be the Police Service Commission will look at it and if they pass the test, they should be given on a pilot scheme.
“There should also be conditions, like if you give them the license and they don’t do well, you can suspend, revoke and the license may not be renewed,” Hon. Benson noted.
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