Report the cheats: Malek

Kota Kinabalu: Consumers in Sabah are encouraged to lodge complaints with the Domestic Trade, Consumerism and Co-operatives Ministry about indiscriminate hikes in the prices of goods and services so that unscrupulous traders can face legal action.Domestic Trade, Consumerism and Co-operatives Minister Dato' Sri Hasan bin Malek made the call following the discouraging number of complaints made by the people in the State to the Ministry for such offences which are still recurring.

He said it is imperative the consumers channel their complaints to the Ministry so that a win-win situation can be achieved and consumers would not be easily cheated by errant traders.

"Consumers should not totally rely on the enforcement officers of the Ministry to inspect all shops and trading premises in the country because such task cannot even be completed in a year.

"That is why I am calling on the public to give full cooperation and help the government by lodging complaints," he said, after inspecting the prices of controlled items under the Kaamatan Festival price control scheme at the Kota Kinabalu Central Market and a spot check on two trading premises in Asia City, Wednesday.

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Also present were the Ministry's Sabah Director Severinus Tukah and other officials.

He said the Ministry has provided many avenues for the consumers to forward their complaints like through its hotline at 1-800-886-800, Facebook, email at [email protected] and through short messaging services (SMS) by typing "KPDNKKAduan

" and send to 15888, among others.

Hasan said a report on the implementation of the Kaamatan Festival price control scheme from May 22 to 25 showed zero complaint after a total of 2,293 trading premises were inspected.

He said the report only showed only one case of a trader failing to display prices for controlled items under the scheme and the trader has been compounded RM100 for the offence.

"I do not want consumers only talk about the suspected offences committed by errant traders among themselves without lodging the complaints to us. Do help us so that we can help the consumers.

"Even the ministry's operation centre for anti-profiteering which operates 24-hour showed a declining trend on receiving public complaints on prices of items following the implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) on April 1.

"On April 1, the centre recorded 7,786 complaints in a day and the number has since fluctuated till now, we only receive about 250 complaints per day," he said.

Hasan said the people are probably gradually understanding the benefits of GST and why the government has implemented the new tax structure, or they are just lazy and choose not to lodge complaints with the ministry.

According to him, the ministry is in the midst of studying the impact of the GST implementation as well as people's complaints, views and feedback so that changes and improvement can be made in line with the people's needs and wants.

Hasan also noted that several traders here are still not complying with the most common rule of displaying price tags on the goods they are selling especially the pink price tags for those controlled items listed in the scheme.

"During my inspection at the Kota Kinabalu Central Market, I was satisfied with the market traders following all regulations that have been set under the ministry.

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"However, I spotted one trader who failed to display the pink price tag on a controlled item listed under the Kaamatan Festival Price Control Scheme that lasts until end of this month. The trader was compounded RM200 for the offence.

"Another trader was also found not putting up price tags on the goods and RM200 compound was imposed to the trader while another committed an offence under the Weights and Measurements Act 1972 and was compounded RM200," he said.

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