Govt Watchdog Tells Consumer Watchdog To Shape Up

The Director of Audit on Wednesday called on officials in the city to step up their efforts to combat unfair trade practices, demanding better enforcement from customs, and a quicker response by the Consumer Council to complaints.

A report by the Audit Director said the Customs and Excise Department is not doing enough to enforce consumer protection laws such as the Trade Descriptions Ordinance, and it needs to speed up its investigations.

The report notes that more than half of the 2,900 or so investigations carried out by the department's Intellectual Property Investigation Bureau between July 2013 and November last year took more than a year to complete.

That was drastically longer than an internal protocol stipulation that urgent cases need to be handled within 24 hours, and low-priority cases within 12 working days.

The report says in one case, the file was only closed after almost four years, warning that such prolonged investigations could lead to more consumers being preyed upon by unscrupulous firms.

The government-spending watchdog also urged the Consumer Council to speed up its follow-up work on complaint cases. It said 16 percent of the body's complaint cases had been left unresolved for three years or more, and the delays severely undermine the interests of the complainants.