The price of eggs and bread baked by one large conglomerate were raised prior to the October 5 budget. Super gasoline and diesel prices went up by 15 per cent post-budget. Chag-uanas/Curepe and Grand Bazaar/Valsayn taxi fares were raised by $1, a tax on online shopping is under consideration, and TSTT will be increasing its “unbundled” prepaid mobile rates from November 1.
So far, the $1 increase in doubles has raised the ire of consumers more than the increase in fuel.
Consumer advocate Hazel Brown who raised concerns about rising prices wants tech-savvy IT people to assist her in setting up an online consumer action group organisation, where consumers can monitor and report unscrupulous businessmen who take advantage of and exploit consumers.
Speaking to the Sunday Guardian, Brown said: “We want to remind people that prices only remain in place when there is a sufficient number of people who voluntarily agree to pay. A significant number of people refusing to pay will also make a difference and we have to learn how to do that.
“Right now, there is no space if something happens for people to report what they had found or what they were going to do.
“People are behaving as if the situation is hopeless and powerless, but that is not so, we have the power in our purses and wallets.”
She said many people out there were too complacent; they wanted to see action taken but didn’t want to do it, claiming they had no time. Brown said they wanted other people to put up a fight and struggle, and then they came along and benefited from it.
Brown said the proposed online site would enable people to contribute posts, advertise where to get the best prices, indicate where people could bargain shop, highlight events and share information. She said they would also advise people that there were alternatives for other products which they used.
Brown said if the price was too high, consumers could decline to buy, do comparison shopping, read price tags, do calculations, use alternative ingredients or products. She said the Consumer Affairs Division was definitely not doing enough to protect consumers and that she gave up on the division a long time ago, since Mervyn Assam was consumer affairs minister in 1995.
Brown said she had tried to encourage the division to be more proactive and to support the formation of consumer groups in the traditional way.
When asked with the advent of social media if the old Trini mindset of “we cyar eat de money” was changing, she said it was, but very slowly in respect of certain things.
Brown said that one person could make a difference; she had the experience where a few people had a problem and acted on it. She said it did not take long for vendors or manufacturers to respond to the customers' complaints. They received feedback if their products were turning over or not, she said.
Brown said a very special opportunity was coming for consumers to have their voices heard in respect to VAT. Finance Minister Colm Imbert proposed to decrease VAT from 15 per cent to 12.5 per cent.
This would be done in tandem with reviewing and adjusting VAT exemptions and zero-rated items which he said were associated with non-essential items and were not critically important to citizens’ livelihoods and basic cost of living.
VAT was removed from 7,000 items under the last government.
Brown said the VAT re-evaluation should be taken on as a consumer issue because people didn’t know what was on this list of items that would no longer be zero rated or exempt.
She said people had to participate in these decisions as the price on zero-rated items could be increased anytime. For more information, Brown can be contacted at hazangbrown@gmail.com and is also on Facebook.
Ministry of Trade: Consumers
empowered to take action
The Ministry of Trade and Industry, whose purview the Consumer Affairs Division falls under, replied via email to the Sunday Guardian on Friday that consumers were empowered to take action on their behalf under the Sale of Goods Act, Misrepresentation Act, Hire Purchase Act, and Unfair Terms Contract Act.
All of these acts were available on the website of the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs.
Yolande Agard-Simmons, the ministry’s manager, Corporate Communications, said this year they had developed a revised National Consumer Policy. The previous approved policy was dated in 1996.
“This revised policy was developed based on the Caricom Consumer Bill with benchmarking against those that exist in Barbados and New Zealand.
“We expect this policy to be approved by Cabinet in the coming months, following which we will review the existing legislation with a view to upgrading and reviewing the areas on which we have received complaints over the weekend.”
She said it should be noted that the division currently operated under the Consumer Protection and Safety Act 1985 and the Trade Description Act 1984.
Agard-Simmons said in protecting the interests of the country’s consumers, the division collaborated closely with the Regulated Industries Commission, The Telecommunications Authority of T&T, The T&T Bureau of Standards, and Chemistry Food and Drugs.
She said consumers should know that the Consumer Affairs Division had been re-branded, its new tag line being “Putting the power on your side,” where through its outreach activities it educated consumers on both their rights and responsibilities.