Consumer awareness is lacking

Published: Thursday January 30, 2014 MYT 12:00:00 AM 

Updated: Thursday January 30, 2014 MYT 7:55:38 AM

MUCH have been said about the need to raise the standards of consumer awareness, in particular when consumer rights have been infringed.

Many Malaysians at best only know how to rant over the ever increasing prices of goods and services that have been going up over the past two years.

Sensitive issues such as petrol prices, the pending implementation of GST and other hotly debated issued have been brought up by many parties, government and non-governmental organisations alike, bringing little solace to Malaysian consumers.

Let us not pretend that there will be a reduction of prices or taxes on goods and services.

Ordinary Malaysians pretty much have had enough of the lack of commitment and action by certain quarters in addressing these issues.

Many will dispute this by saying that all parties be it government, private sector and other parties, have done their part in addressing these shortcomings and often the public is told to be patient or be grateful to what they have at the moment.

But as a citizen, are we not entitled to better consumer protection? Or are we asking too much?

Some parties have initiated consumer awareness by the re-evaluation of personal expenditure to cushion the impact of rising cost of living and though this is commendable, it does little for the average wage-earner who cannot make any further “budget-tightening”. Calls for better and viable solution to address these problems are often not heeded and instead many choose to ignore the plight of the public.

Lastly, agencies ought to re-evaluate their priorities by not pursuing mega-budget projects at the expense of the public and the environment.

Malaysians have enough problems to cope with. The only thing that we need now is proper infrastructure and better consumer awareness and education.

SHASHI KUMAR

Shah Alam