Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2023-10-02

Streamlining the inquiries conducted into consumer complaints received by the Consumer Affairs Authority

- Under the provisions of the Consumer Affairs Authority Act, No.9 of 2003, legal provisions have been provided for the Consumer Affairs Authority to intervene in consumer complaints. Also, the Department of Measurement, Standards and Services established by the Measurement Units, Standards and Services Act, No.35 of 1995 conducts market raids together with the Consumer Affairs Authority with a view to protecting the consumer rights. Accordingly, the Minister of Trade, Commerce and Food Security having informed the Cabinet on the programme planned to implement to educate consumers and manufacturers regarding the protection of consumer rights and fair trade practices as one of the important steps to reduce the time and effort spent on investigating consumer complaints and giving decisions thereto, to decentralize the investigation procedure and make provisions to conduct them district level in order to make the process of investigating complaints more efficient, and to establish a National Operations Centre aiming to conduct the special raids through an integrated programme, decided to grant the concurrence of the Cabinet for the same.