SOME 40 shops were to be prosecuted for violating the law governing the advertising of price reductions, said the Commerce and Industry Minister Antonis Paschalides, responding to a letter about the subject from EDEK deputy Yiannakis Omirou. The files had already been forwarded to the police for the necessary action said the minister.
The law allegedly violated was the law governing shop sales. In Cyprus, we have a law which gives the right to the commerce ministry to dictate the period during which shops can advertise price reductions. It issues the directive, setting the period for advertised sales, twice a year, in winter and in the summer and the period lasts about six weeks. It also stipulates different period for shops selling different items – furniture shops have one period while clothes and shoe shops another.
This resoundingly stupid law was passed several years ago, at the behest of the association of owners of small shops (POVEK) which argued that the ability of the bigger shops to announce price cuts whenever they chose was unfair competition that would drive its members out of business. Under pressure from this large bloc of voters, populist deputies drafted the law that gave the commerce ministry the right to set ‘sales periods’ and made it illegal for shops to advertise price cuts outside these periods.
Paschalides informed Omirou that his ministry’s Service for Competition and Protection of the Consumer, has mounted an ‘intensive campaign’, from September 1 to October 15, during which there were 788 inspections all over Cyprus and 362 violations of the law were noted; 339 shops of these shops complied with the law while 23 did not and were being prosecuted. He expected another 17 shops to be reported.
Just think about this. The service that ensures there is competition will be prosecuting shops that are competing by lowering their prices and benefiting the consumer. The Service that supposedly protects the consumer is penalising shops that are letting the consumer know, through advertising, that they are offering products at lower prices. According to this logic-defying law, shops can offer goods at lower prices as long as they tell nobody about them. In this way neither shop nor the consumer would benefit. And the service for the protection of the consumer has been sending out inspectors to ensure that shops do not inform consumers about bargains they may be offering. Does Paschalides believe this Soviet-type behaviour is in the interest of the consumer?
And what about the shops which are desperately trying to stay afloat in the worst recession to have hit Cyprus? Price cuts and special offers are the only way to generate some revenue, at a time when business is staggeringly slow, and these are to the benefit of the consumer that Paschalides is supposed to protect. But instead he is penalising the consumer in order to protect owners of small shop. How clever is that?
