Reports reaching the Daily Observer have it that the Hoarding Prohibition Act has been enacted and passed into law with immediate effect.

This bill, according to a media release from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Employment, aims, among other things, to prevent hoarding, promote competition and ensure a fair trading environment that is beneficial to the business community and consumers.

The release further added that the Act provides penalties for those persons engaged in hoarding and their accomplices. It also makes it obligatory for every person who knows that hoarding is taking place to report it to the police, adding that if any person fails to report such practices to the police, he or she has committed an offence that is punishable by law.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Employment also warned that those traders in the habit of hoarding essential commodities, thereby creating artificial shortages that result to the high increase of prices of commodities, will face the full force of the law.