Ivory Coast/fight against the high cost of living: 2000 complaints registered, according to the Rapid Control Brigade (Interview)

“There were 2,000 complaints recorded, of which 1,365 cases were processed as of October 31, 2023,” declared Armand Alexandre Koffi, commander of the Rapid Control Brigade (BCR) of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. and the Promotion of SMEs during a video interview to be published on Abidjan.net.

According to Commander Koffi, his services have identified 966 establishments and businesses, of which 399 are in compliance. That is to say, which respect the capped prices and which display the prices at the bottom of the products. “Some of them were sealed and the owners mostly went to our offices to pay their fines which range from 100 to 500 thousand CFA francs for some and 100 thousand to 100 million CFA francs for others. ” he explained.

According to the head of the BCR, the traditional distribution circuit marked by a strong presence of shops is the circuit which has difficulty respecting the basic rules of marketing products, which are the display of prices.

He invited people to be extra vigilant during this end-of-year holiday period. “We pinpointed a structure whose name I will not mention. This structure has decided to hold a promotional sale. It turned out that the structure displays a low price while at the checkout the price is higher.

Indeed, he indicated that several traders have embarked on a spiral of reducing the prices of their goods with “Sales” as the key. “Prices with discounts often do not correspond with prices at checkout. Worse, there are traders who write Balance -50% when in reality it is a balance of -35%,” he regretted.