Minister La Corbiniere.
Whilst progress is being made with the finalisation of the Consumer Protection Bill, which has been in the making for over a decade now, challenges have prevented it from being completed and passed in the House of Assembly.
That is according to Minister for Legal Affairs Victor Phillip La Corbiniere, who said in an interview with Saint Lucia News Online (SNO) that as it stands, the bill is still in its final draft stage.
The Consumer Protection Bill is designed to ensure the rights of consumers as well as fair trade competition and the free flow of truthful information in the marketplace.
La Corbiniere told SNO that “tremendous difficulty” in his ministry’s Legislative Drafting Department continues to affect the process, which began when his political party got into office.
“We just do not have the capacity, to be able to address all of the issues in as timely a fashion as we should,” he said, adding that there has had to be some level of prioritising.
“It has gotten a little better over the last few months because we’ve had a fairly good and dedicated small team who have been committed to the cause of legislative drafting and who are pushing the agenda forward. In that context, we have been constantly doing work on the Consumer Protection Bill, almost from the inception of this government coming into office,” he said.
According to the minister, he has reviewed the final draft and indicated some comments which are being looked at. In addition to this, he pointed to other concerns which were recently communicated by a regional body who had been asked to review the piece of legislation. They have asked that the bill be further revised.
“I have been in dialogue with the minister on that issue and my sense is that she may still wish it to go forward in its present form and make those adjustments later but these are all these sort of issues that we’ve had to deal with in relation to that,” he said.
He said that contrary to what has been said in the media, the bill has only been on his desk for a couple weeks and “up until then everybody was saying they were ready to go and then we got this (correspondence from the regional body) indicating that in fact, we needed to hold a bit of strain and again begin to look at some of the issues.”
“I can assure you that it is one of the priorities moving ahead,” he stated.
Last month, National Consumers Association Kingsley St. Hill called La Corbiniere out urging him to see to it that the bill is finalised at earnest and brought to cabinet. St. Hill said that consumers are being withheld from one of their critical rights as long as the bill is not being passed.
La Corbiniere said that while he understands that some individuals may have genuine concerns about the matter, others may have their own motives at heart.
“I am amazed at a lot of what has been said because that bill has been around for close to 10 years or maybe a little less … but for a very long time. I’m somewhat almost amazed to find that very little has been said over the years except every time this government has come into office, there has been a lot of brouhaha about it,” he said.
The minister opined that while he thinks that persons have a right to advocate for the passage of the bill, “but I am making a distinction between a legitimate push and a brouhaha which sometimes is really aimed at other things. So I understand the legitimate push to have it done.”
As to when the bill will be brought to the House. A definite date could not be determined.
The Consumer Protection Bill will afford consumers the right to seek redress if they have been wronged by retailers. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs which is headed by Minister Emma Hippolyte, will be bringing the bill to parliament once things are a go.