Durban - The Sparkport Group of Pharmacies has come out fighting against allegations made during by the Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs that it had hiked the price of hand sanitisers and face masks amid the coronavirus pandemic that has seen the country enforce a 21-day lockdown to curb its spread.
KwaZulu-Natal Economic Development MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube this week made an unannounced visit to the pharmacy's Overport branch which had been accused of price-gouging. During the visit, the department allegedly found a 500ml hand sanitiser retailing at R179, while a 100ml was R79 while an FFP1 protective dust mask, designed to protect the wearer against inhaling airborne particles, retailed at R780.
Dube-Ncube said the National Consumer Commission and the National Competition Authority had launched investigations into the matter.
However, Solly Suleman, the director of Sparkport Pharmacies slammed Dube-Ncube and her "entourage" for ignoring all social distancing, hand sanitising and temperature check protocols when they barged into the pharmacy and placed his staff and patients at risk.
Suleman said the allegation that they sold a face mask for R780 was "nonsensical".
"Who would pay R780 for a single mask?" he asked.
"Sparkport is in existence for over 36 years and has provided support and service to our patients and the community and was the first discounter of medicines," Suleman said.
"It (is) grossly unfair to target retailers when the entire supply chain has become problematic. 'The department found a 500ml hand sanitiser retailing at R179' which is not true. The hand sanitiser 100ml for R79 was queried and we have responded to the department as to the ingredients, consistency/ base of the product and type of packaging (15 page certification) the procurement cost as well as mark up," he said without elaborating.
Suleman said it was critical that any statement made by leaders is based on fact and if there were complaints that it be dealt with in a professional manner "without becoming judge, jury and executioner".
"The Department of Economic Development needs to also understand that the state of disaster should not be a witch hunt but should be working with groups like ours, understand our businesses and challenges and provide guidelines to ensure that jobs are retained. These are challenging times and we all need to work together to prevent the inevitable damage to business, loss of jobs and the exacerbation of the number of employed in this country. We need for leadership to be responsible since false allegations can do major reputational damage to businesses like ours especially when we consider that we stock thousands of products and two products are targeted," he said.
"We employ 130 staff and work till late in the evening to service the needs of our patients and the overall cost of our HR department is substantially higher than the average considering the employment of professional staff. The Competition Commission conducted an inquiry and submissions were made. This was handled with the utmost professionalism".
Daily News
* For the latest on the Covid-19 outbreak visit IOL's #Coronavirus trend page
** If you think you have been exposed to the Covid-19 virus, please call the government's 24-hour hotline on 0800 029 999 or go to SA Coronavirus for more information.