Consumers make 45,000 complaints about supermarket prices so far this year

Ministry of Economy releases figures as it continues its inspection tours of supermarkets big and small throughout Ramadan.

FUJAIRAH // Shoppers have lodged more than 45,000 complaints about the price of products since the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Economy says.

The complaints came from across the UAE, and the ministry said that 97 per cent of them were resolved within 24 hours without penalty.

Dr Hashim Al Nuaimi, director of consumer protection at the ministry, visited a Lulu Hypermarket in Fujairah to conduct an inspection with municipality officers on Monday.

Dr Al Nuaimi praised Lulu for its product prices.

“Lulu is one of the biggest contributors in Ramadan initiatives that we launch every year,” he said.

“They contributed Dh60 million in Fujairah by decreasing the regular prices of 220 different items each week, and offering the Ramadan basket that contains items that can be used for one week by a family of five, and can be donated to people in need.”

But some shoppers said they were unhappy about the prices of staple foodstuffs in smaller shops.

“I shop here [Lulu] all the time and every week they have new offers, so mainly I buy everything from here,” said Zakaria Ahmad.

“The problem is that sometimes we buy urgent things from the small supermarket next door, where the prices are out of control – Dh20 to Dh25 more than the regular price.”

Mrs Ahmad believes many of the small supermarkets bought their stock from larger supermarkets such as Lulu, then increased the price at their outlets.

“I wonder if the ministry is doing any inspections on these small markets.”

Dr Al Nuaimi said sales at big supermarkets were monitored by staff and cameras, and buying in bulk to sell in smaller stores was not allowed.

"We do inspection tours all the time on big and small supermarkets, but if the consumer has any complaints they can call 600 522225 and we will deal with it right away," he said.

“The Ministry of Economy restricts any price-rise request from a seller or a manufacturer. The request first goes through a committee headed by the Minister of Economy that has the right to approve or deny the request.”

Dr Al Nuaimi and his team will conduct inspections of at retail outlets across the UAE throughout Ramadan.

The director of consumer protection said that the ministry had launched three initiatives during the holy month to highlight consumers’ rights.

First, big supermarkets must have television screens displaying people’s rights.

“The second initiative is called ‘consumer inspector’, where each and every one of us should be an inspector and have the responsibility in assisting officials in monitoring product prices and report any incident directly to us,” Dr Al Nuaimi said.

He said the third initiative was to freeze the prices of 3,000 items until the end of the year.