The Economic Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives plans to complete discussions of Consumer Protection Agency draft law during the current week.
Member of the parliament’s Economic Affairs Committee Amr El-Gohary said that the Consumer Protection Agency draft law will be discussed over two consecutive days in order to submit a report to the General Committee to set a date for a vote.
El-Gohary added that the committee had completed the discussion of 22 articles of the draft law, which consists of about 85 articles. The Consumer Protection Agency was put under the cabinet sovereignty.
He said that the draft law had allowed workers the status of law enforcement. The agency has branches in all governorates according to population density in order to ensure efficient control on the market during the coming period.
He added that the House of Representatives aims to control the market through legislative intervention to modify the terms of reference of the agency under uncontrollable prices during the current period.
He said that the parliament will support the work of the ministries that aim to control markets and prevent the uncontrollable price hikes in the coming period.
He explained that the committee approves of the Ministry of Supply putting indicative prices on food commodities in markets during the current period.
The annual inflation rate rose to 24.3% in December 2016 compared to December 2015. The annual inflation rate in November recorded 20.2%.
According to the draft law, the agency provides financial and technical support to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to help them control the market and adjust prices.
Hussein Eissa, chairperson of the parliamentary Planning and Budget Committee, said that the main reason behind the increased prices is the problem of the supply of goods. The crisis of supply occurred because many factories stopped production over the past years, which the state is working on solving during the current period.
Eissa added that the increase in production and pumping more goods would be sufficient to cut prices during a brief period in conjunction with the state’s controls over markets to adjust the uncontrollable prices.
