OVER THE past eleven months, the Consumer Affairs Commission (CAC) has recovered in excess of $4 million for Jamaican consumers whose rights were violated by vendors.Chief executive officer of the Commission, Dolsie Allen, made the disclosure while addressing a JIS Think Tank session on Wednesday. She also pointed to the excellent resolution rate that the CAC enjoyed.
"Every year we receive approximately 2,500 complaints and successfully resolve 92 per cent of them. From January 2003 to November 2003, the commission has had refunds totalling $4,634,000," she said.
Most of these refunds have come from the furniture, electronics and small appliances and automobile sectors.
ACHIEVEMENTS
In highlighting the Commission's achievements to date, Mrs. Allen said the recoveries might appear small but was still "a great achievement" for the CAC.
"Think about the number of persons who would have been left without any form of redress had we not been there," she said.
She stressed too that the CAC was not really a watchdog, but a facilitator of fair trade between consumers and vendors. The mandate of the CAC, is to help to resolve disputes in the marketplace; to assist in fostering ethical relationships between the providers of goods and services and consumers and; to establish a public education programme, one which would inform consumers and vendors alike.
"We envision a population of consumers who are knowledgeable, vigilant, assertive and discriminating," Mrs. Allen told JIS News.
She said the Commission therefore endeavoured to be vigilant in both its handling of complaints and public education campaigns. In the past year the Commission has had 127 direct contacts with the public through presentations and expositions, but hopes the number will increase during the next financial year.
EIGHT BASIC RIGHTS
The CAC acknowledges eight basic rights of the consumer and seeks to protect these rights. These include the right to satisfaction of basic needs, to be protected against hazardous products and processes, to live in a healthy and sustainable environment, to have facts and to make informed choices, to choose between a variety of goods and services, the right to consumer education, redress, and to be heard.
With the influx of goods and services on the Jamaican market and the country's development into a free market economy, the Consumer Affairs Commission was created in 1992 to protect consumers from unscrupulous vendors and at the same time to promote harmonious trade between buyers and sellers.
