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Friday March 29, 2024

CCP probing ‘cartelisation’ of sugar tycoons

Chairperson says Mobilink, Warid in process of seeking approval from commission for merger

By our correspondents
December 04, 2015
ISLAMABAD: In order to probe allegation of cartelisation against sugar tycoons as majority of owners belong to the political elite, the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) is holding an inquiry for establishing anti-competitive practices and wrongdoings.
The watchdog, CCP, had already taken action in a number of cases by imposing billions of rupees fines after establishing cartels in major sectors including cement, sugar and many others, but they all got rescued by getting stay orders by challenging the constitutionality or jurisdiction of the Commission.
The CCP is also probing pharmaceutical sector but its inquiry has not yet been initiated. “We are collecting evidence to get permission from the Commission (CCP) for starting inquiry into this sector,” the Chairperson CCP Vadiyya Khalil told during a press briefing here on Thursday.
Flanked by Members Ikram Ul Haque Qureshi and Dr Shahzad Ansar on this occasion, the CCP Chairperson said that they were probing air fares, auto, cigarettes, milk companies and pharmaceutical sectors to ascertain any wrongdoing with the prospective of competition concerns or abuse of dominance by any major player to dictate the markets.
In case of life saving drugs, the CCP is inquiring that how zero rated facility provided by the FBR on five major drugs was misused and low price drugs were smuggled out to India or Bangladesh by creating artificial shortages inside the country.
She said that the Commission brought major changes in the process of taking up merger cases as they established full three-member bench to summon all stakeholders for hearing before taking its final decision as earlier one member was authorised to approve merger/acquisitions on the basis of filed application in 30 days period.
“Now the major merger case is coming to be related to telecom sector as Mobilink had recently taken over another player of the market Warid. They are in the process of filing case to seek approval from us,” said CCP Chairperson.
She said that the CCP was holding probe. She said that the Commission was asking high-profile schools for providing information on fee hike as earlier they had approached the Lahore High Court (LHC) to bar the proceedings on the pretext that education is a provincial subject but the honourable Court asked CCP to finalise jurisdiction related issues after hearing elite school.
After hearing schools, CCP Member Ikram Ul Haque Qureshi said that the CCP issued orders to schools for providing information related to fees hike. Now another school had also approached the LHC for seeking stay order on our proceedings, he added.
He said that the LHC had now clubbed all cases in which the court had granted stay orders. The CCP Chairperson said that on the directive of Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, the CCP conducted inquiry on price hike of essential items and recommended to the government to come up with uniform formula for fixing prices of food items in markets of different cities.
She said that the CCP had conducted 32 hearings, issued 9 orders and cleared 74 mergers during last three quarters (January to September) 2015. The CCP conducted 28 inquiries out of which 5 were concluded and 23 were in progress.
She said that the CCP decided to go vigorously on creating awareness among the industry and trading stakeholders and they planned to go 22 important cities in next one and half month period to ensure outreach and creating awareness about completion law and progress so far achieved by CCP since its inception with the act of Parliament.