THE CHAIRMAN of the House Commerce Committee yesterday expressed his concern over the absence of a Competition Commissioner.
Speaking after his committee met to discuss a bill regarding the Committee for the Protection of Competition (CPC), Lefteris Christoforou of DISY said he was especially worried about the fact that the CPC “is today without a head and does not have the ability to execute its difficult and laborious task”.
He said it was disappointing that CPC head Panayiotis Kallis had last week felt forced to stand down due to the lack of proper staffing and modern systems to deal with competition complaints.
“While there were clearly violations of competition laws and some prices were more than eight times higher, [the CPC head] did not have the power and modern systems to carry out a complete investigation and spot violations of the law,” said Christoforou.
“The CPC is understaffed and cannot execute its supervisory role in the market; we believe that the market should be supervised and at this moment, the only people who are rubbing their hands in glee are those who are price-fixing, profiteering and disrespecting healthy competition,” he added.
“We believe that the CPC should operate immediately and for this reason, the Commerce Committee will pass the relative legislation straight away, after the amendments are submitted,” Christoforou pointed out.
Kallis yesterday explained the reasons of his resignation to the committee.
“I work with the mentality that I need to produce results and after the Supreme Court decision, based on which all cases must be examined from the start – most of which were pending from 2005, plus 30 cases that were tried from 2001-2001 and onwards – I strongly felt that I could not contribute as much as I would have liked,” said Kallis.
He told the committee that he felt as a consumer that there was price fixing on the market and had tried his best to start investigations into all products and services.
“In two basic products, I know as a citizen and as a consumer that one is being sold at double the price from what producers are selling it, and the other is being sold at eight times the price of its basic materials,” Kallis added, pointing out that he did not have the appropriate staff to open an investigation into the issue.
AKEL deputy Stavros Evagorou said the bill the committee was evaluating would strengthen the role and powers of the CPC.
“We are waiting for the Legal Services to send the final text to the Commerce Committee and we will move ahead with its approval straight away,” he said.
DIKO’s Angelos Votsis added that the Finance Ministry’s intention to reinforce the CPC as much as possible was positive, adding that the committee had been asked to approve six new positions at the Commission.
Commerce Minister Antonis Paschalides said yesterday a new Competition Commissioner was expected to be appointed within the next few days.
Paschalides added his ministry had never been informed of Kallis’ complaints, and that this was why no actions had been taken.
