By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Consumer Protection Commission lacks sufficient enforcement teeth to “properly and effectively” address complaints against Bahamian businesses, a Cabinet minister has revealed.

Dion Foulkes, minister of labour, writing in the regulator’s 2020 annual report, said legal reforms and accompanying regulations that would give the commission more clout “remain outstanding” and have yet to go through Parliament’s legislative process.

“It has come to my attention.... that the commission’s staff still faces significant challenges in properly and effectively disposing of its cases,” Mr Foulkes wrote. “The much-needed amendments to the enabling legislation and introduction of accompanying regulations that I touted in last year’s report remain outstanding.

“When a consumer lodges a formal complaint with the Commission, they are primarily concerned with obtaining timely and effective redress. Now in its fourth year, this along with consumer education must of necessity be the primary focus moving forward.”

Mr Foulkes said the Commission had managed to close 60.9 percent, or 14 of the 23 complaints reported to it during the 12 months to end-March 2020. That compared to 48.7 percent, or 19 of 39 cases, that were registered in the 2019 annual report.

Philip J Beneby, the Commission’s chairman, yesterday called for it to have “more teeth” is seeking the creation of a Consumer Protection Tribunal so his Board can adjudicate matters before them. 

He told Tribune Business the Consumer Protection Act amendments have been drafted, and are now with the Attorney General’s Office. Changes related to the elimination of the Bahamian one cent coin, and price rounding, together with the regulations are also being reviewed. 

Mr Beneby said a key change will align the Commission’s financial year-end with that of the Government’s to ensure it does not run out of funding. He said: “The year end for us is March and government is in June. We want to realign ours to June, because we always get a shortage because we have three month’s before the year-end.

“We want to highlight consumer protection and recommend the Act to have more teeth. We have cases before us now that we have to refer to the Attorney General’s Office office for enforcement. We want to be able to have more teeth with respect to these cases, so we are pushing for a Tribunal at the Commission.”  

Morgan Gilbert, the Commission’s executive director, said the changes to the Act and price rounding legislation are set to be “tabled soon” in the House of Assembly. She added that it is “a very extensive revamp of the Act” which had been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.