Photo credit: The Autonomous Bougainville Government
The Autonomous Bougainville Government and the Independent Consumer and Competition Commission signed a Memorandum of Understanding today in Buka, which now marks the beginning of the drawdown of full powers from the consumer watchdog to the ABG.
The drawdown process falls under the SHARP Agreement signed by the Governments of Bougainville and Papua New Guinea in May this year.
ABG Vice President and Minister for Commerce, Trade and Industry Hon. Patrick Nisira says this signing is a very significant occasion for Bougainville and marks the way forward for both governments to work together to protect consumer affairs in Bougainville.
“Our consumers in Bougainville deserve the best – without consumers we won’t have any business,” he said.
He said that this protection must cover pricing and also quality of goods and services offered by businesses in the region, among others.
Minister Nisira expressed his support of this process, saying that going forward; his Department will work closely with the ICCC to ensure the MoU is implemented immediately and effectively.
ICCC Commissioner Paul Ain said that this signing was an important activity for the ICCC.
He explained that the ICCC was established as part of the reforms led by Late Sir Mekere Morauta when he was the Prime Minister, and is basically the bridge between consumers and businesses as well as the main regulator of the economic sector in PNG.
“Our core functions are to regulate the prices, protect the consumers and deal with merges and acquisitions,” he explained.
“Consumer protection is a very big role we have in trying to protect the consumers from what the business community does. At the same time we try to meet in the middle and protect the consumers and make sure that the businesses does the right thing,” Commissioner Ain said.
While other provinces in PNG only receive the consumer protection functions from the ICCC, for Bougainville the MoU between both parties now paves way for all ICCC functions to be passed on to Bougainville over a period of time.
Going forward, both parties will begin training of ABG officers for capacity building to ensure that ABG has the required skills and capacity in human resources to enforce and implement the ICCC powers and functions.
Article courtesy of The Autonomous Bougainville Government
