Labour proposes one-stop shop for complaints

Opposition spokesman on consumer protection Silvio Parnis yesterday proposed a one-stop-shop system to monitor consumer complaints and then channel them to the government departments concerned. This would do more justice to the consumer who, like the EU Commissioner, had reason to be less than satisfied with what the Consumer Division was doing.

Mr Parnis said the time had come for Parliament to have the courage to show sensitivity to the plight of low-income families in social benefits.

Referring to the consumer even in the health sector, he expressed the hope that the government would not boast about the reduced numbers on the waiting lists just because many who were now being contacted were saying that they had had to resort to private surgery.

Earlier, Mr Parnis said that the opposition was led by former Labour MEP Joseph Muscat, who in his stint at the European Parliament had always paid the utmost attention to the rights of consumers. The term consumer could be given to everybody, irrespective of social status, and it was unlikely that anybody could say they had always been satisfied with what they had bought.

Advertisers all too often presented things in a somewhat different light to reality. Gone were the times when a consumer bought something because he saw it on shop shelves. Shopping avenues today included the internet and teleshopping.

The opposition would vote for the Bill. With each passing day the general consumer felt the need of the Labour Party to protect its interests.

The consumer today had reason to be less than satisfied with his lot.

Staff of the Department of Consumer Affairs needed more and better training to serve the consumer better, with the result that they were demoralised.

EU membership had made the consumer much more conscious of his rights. The European Commissioner, too, was less than satisfied with what the Consumer Division was doing in the consumer's interests.

Mr Parnis proposed that wherever the consumer was concerned he should be served by a one-stop-shop system, managed by a single entity that would monitor all consumer complaints and then pass them on for action to the government departments concerned. All along, it was important to remember that the consumer was much more than a number.

Among the foremost causes of consumer complaints were the long waiting lists for surgeries and the saga of the water and electricity tariffs, which was still causing great uncertainty in Maltese families.

There were financially-weak families whose members had lost the right to free medicines just because their income had been raised by the cost-of-living adjustment, while others who were very well off continued to receive them because of such chronic conditions as diabetes. Such circumstances did nothing to raise poor families' dignity.

Mr Parnis said the time had come for Parliament to have the courage to show sensitivity to the plight of low-income families in social benefits. It was wrong for MPs, even those on the opposition side, not to speak up about such states of affairs. After all, it was Labour that had pioneered social services. It was not right for a person to have to be blind in order to qualify for certain benefits.

Referring to the recently-raised price of gas, he recalled that there had been times when it was cheaper and more cost-effective to use gas for heating purposes.

Returning to the health sector, Mr Parnis said it was wrong to denigrate Mater Dei Hospital on grounds of cleanliness. He was sure that the Minister for Social Policy and his Parliamentary Secretary were doing their best in the circumstances, but it was still a fact that there were 5,351 patients waiting for cataracts operations. He hoped that the government would not boast about the reduced numbers on the waiting lists just because many who were being contacted were saying that they had had to resort to private surgery.

It was a widely-held perception that there were people for whom it was better worth their while to have long waiting lists for hospital surgery. The situation could only be helped by everybody concerned pulling on the same rope.

When medicines went out of stock, it was easy for the well-off to dip into their pockets and buy them, but the case was very different for people who depended only on their pensions. This was not social justice, and the consumer did not deserve such treatment. Malta was not a third-world country. The consumer should be treated much better.

On the cost of living, Mr Parnis said that the NSO had just issued a news release saying that over the past year, since the elections, the cost of living had soared, as had the national debt. This did not do justice to the Maltese consumer.

He expressed solidarity with all workers who were losing their jobs, as well as with their families. It would not be fair to blame such job losses exclusively on the government. It was as if nothing amounted to anything, and Maltese families were facing a hard summer. Unemployment was rearing its ugly head again. Workers' families, possibly the greatest sector of consumers, wanted much more than advertising. They wanted the problem to be meaningfully tackled. Where was the dialogue of the 1980s?

Part of the blame for the working families' shortness of money could be laid at the door of the water and electricity tariffs and the surge in the prices of gas. Part of the solution could be the one-stop shop that Labour was proposing in a constructive spirit.

If everybody worked together in a positive spirit, all would understand that the consumer in today's world deserved much more importance and protection from deceitful advertising, which would in turn increase his dignity, concluded Mr Parnis.