The commission welcomed the decision by the tribunal, which comes a week after the former referred the matter after reaching the agreement with distributor MATUS.

The commission is one of three independent statutory bodies established to regulate competition between companies in South Africa, and performs the role of investigating and prosecuting matters, while the tribunal acts as the court. A third agency, the Competition Appeal Court, hears appeals against decisions made by the tribunal.

Since the South African government declared the Covid-19 global pandemic a national disaster in March, the commission has fined a number of suppliers, including pharmacies, for inflating the prices of items classified as personal hygiene products to protect consumers against the virus.

On Wednesday it said MATIS, which has branches in big cities around South Africa, had admitted to inflating its gross profit margins with regards to its face masks.

"MATUS agreed to pay an administrative penalty of R5.9 million, further contribute R5 million to the Solidarity Fund of Covid 19, and will, with immediate effect, reduce its gross profit margin on dust masks to acceptable levels for the duration of the state of national disaster," the comission said.

MATUS has also undertaken to ensure that, for as long as such products qualify as essential in terms of the health crisis regulations, it will not raise its pricing profit margins above the levels that applied on February 16. 

Other suppliers that have been penalised include hardware stores and pharmacies found to have excessively inflated prices for face masks and hand sanitisers. The commission said many of the retailers who were fined did sell the products in question before March.

African News Agency (ANA)