CCPC IS A TOOTHLESS BULL DOG
Bayopa ba DSTV…
By Miles B. Sampa, MP (22.08.2022)
The news that the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) has fined the Levy Mwanawasa Medical university 0.5% of its gross annual sales is Africa’s biggest joke. The Zambian owned university built from tax payers money was found guilty of not awarding its students degrees when they should have. Not sure but regardless of why that happened, CCPC is out of order.
Affected students should have indeed graduated when due and on schedule at the public institution but herein lies a huge problem with the CCPC. They seem scared of bitting the real corporate business offenders but happy to nail the non arm twisting quasi government institutions like the medical university.
Essentially it is the Ministry of Commerce sending a penaulty fee to the Ministry of Higher Education and Ministry of Health. In the end it’s the tax payers being punished to indirectly fund the university twice. To raise or recover that 0.5% charge that is in million of Kwachas, the university is likely to increase their fees. The increamental cost will then land inside parents or gudians personal bank accounts that are already far streched with other economic challenges.
The CCPC penaulty may see increased drop outs on potential medical Doctors that are urgently needed in our constituency hospitals or clinics. In addition the medical university is relatively new and should be supported more by any means necessary on its teething problems rather than canning it.
The big fat elephants in the room that CCPC should be reprimanding with huge penauties are well known. They keep stamping on Zambians and causing perpetual public outcries. These are DSTV’s Multichoice, mobile phone companies (Airtel, MTN & Zamtel), Banks mobile money fees, malls shop rentals and and high end landlords.
They all abusing and stealing from us their clients (Consumers) by continuing to charge same prices they did when the USD/ZMK exchange rate was at 20 or so. Its now at circa 15 per dollar and means they are stealing K5 per transaction from each Zambian that is their customer.
The argument that FOREX is not their main cost factor in pricing actually so confirms the opposite. It means even when the Kwacha depreciates, they should not increase their prices as not all their costs are FOREX based. If can’t pass their huge FOREX revaluation gains to their customers, atleast they should pass them to their Zambian workers. I can bet they have not increased their workers salaries or bonuses since the Kwacha started to gain many months ago.
The Zambian Customer has cried enough especially on the ever over charging DSTV and cell phone companies. They are making huge per head profits out of Zambia far more than they making in their country of origin South Africa or any other SADC country.
The current Board members of CCPC are cowards actually and should resign or be fired for betraying Zambian Consumers or Customers.
The first thing the new board should do is as per usual is go on lavish workshop in Livingstone or Bonanza but except this time their should just have one item on their agenda namely what the acronym CCPC stand for. They will discover that indeed the nomenclature legally stands for ‘Competition and Consumer Protection Commision’.
In reality however CCPC means ‘Customers Customers People Customer’.
CCPC should never abandon or ignore constant cries from the Zambian customers being abused or robbed via exorbitant pricing and bad services specifically from DSTV, Airtel, MTN, Zamtel, commercial Banks, Malls and Landlords.
Together We Can
MBS22.08.2022