New council being created to protect consumer interests

The OCPB will soon seek Cabinet approval for the draft bill for its establishment, PM Office’s Minister Suwaphan Tanyuvardhana said yesterday, after presiding over the OCPB executive meeting.
Suwaphan said the meeting heard updates on the creation of the new council, which is backed by the 2017 Constitution. The OCPB had formulated a draft legislation and was currently gathering input from related agencies, and would propose it for the Cabinet’s approval, he said. 
The new council would not make the OCPB redundant as it would focus on promoting public awareness, offer knowledge about consumer rights and public participation as well as represent consumers, he explained. The OCPB would mainly focus on legal matters for consumer protection. 
The meeting also approved legal action against 25 business operators, who were divided into two groups. There were 12 cases in general goods and services (nurseries, elderly/patient care, golf course, car leasing, yoga school and tour company) and 13 cases in property, housing estate and condominium businesses. 
The meeting also noted that complaints against property businesses were on the rise since 2016 due to the increase in the number of housing and condominium projects. It noted that the OCPB must take proactive measures to speed up the probe into existing cases and provide basic consumer rights information to the public. The authority had recently issued a regulation that rental apartments be considered a business with controlled contracts to ensure fairness in rental rate and water/power bill rate. The OCPB has asked the Commerce Ministry to post this regulation at apartments one month in advance of implementation, the meeting was told.