Owners preventing inspections: ICCC

THE Independent Consumer and Competition Commission (ICCC) has revealed that their attempts to check shops or suppliers of illegal products have been thwarted by business owners.
ICCC Mamose manager Timothy Ponau said many Asian shops were currently using radios to alert and pass information between themselves related to inspection by ICCC officers.
He said this during the final day of a customs training workshop conducted in Lae which started on Wednesday and ended on Friday.
Presenting an overview of the unfair competition and consumer protection, Ponau said they received a lot of complaints from the consumers of the products and services but his office could not address every case as some were not under their jurisdiction.
He said PNG currently does not have any standard in consumer safety and followed the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC).
Ponau said they had already banned certain products in the country for safety reasons based on statistics and data.
Some of the goods which had permanent and interim product safety bans imposed on them were small high powered magnets, yo-yo water balls, toy-like novelty cigarette lighters and certain baby dummies that needed to meet certain requirements before selling it in PNG.
Ponau said non-English labelled food item and certain aquatic toys were also banned.
He urged customers to report to ICCC if they found any of these banned products on shelves around the country so they could be penalised.