Guests attend the orientation programme of district leaders of the Consumer Association of Bangladesh at the CIRDAP auditorium in the capital on Thursday. — New Age photo

Speakers at a seminar in Dhaka on Thursday urged the help of the commerce and information ministries, the Information Commission and non-governmental organisations in the implementation of the Consumers Rights Protection Act.
The Consumers Association of Bangladesh and Manusher Jonno Foundation organised the seminar in the CIRDAP auditorium.
At the seminar on how the Right to Information Act could support implementation of the Consumer Rights Protection Act, the speakers said that both the acts were passed on the same day in 2009 but only the Right to Information Act was being implemented.
Information commissioner Sadeka Halim said that the commerce ministry should play the main role in supporting the implementation of the Consumer Rights Protection Act because the Consumer Rights Protection Department is under the commerce ministry.
As for usefulness of the RTI law in the implementation and enforcement of the Consumer Right Protection Act, she said that the department could use the RTI law to get information from any government institutions, peoples could use the law to get information on how the department was working.
She said that the CAB had always worked for consumer rights protection and the government should help the association so that it could do the job better.
She said that the consumer rights protection law could get information from private organisations and the RTI law could get information from government and some non-governmental organisations that are run on foreign aid.
The information secretary, Hedayetullah Al Mamoon, and the Manusher Jonno Foundation executive director, Shaheen Anam, said that the big challenge in the implementation of the consumer rights protection law was that the enforcers need to deal with vested interests which makes the enforcement difficult.
Nasrin Begum, additional secretary to the legislative and parliamentary affairs division, said that the protection of consumer rights also calls for the enforcement of 16 related laws made earlier.
Food and nutrition scientist in Dhaka University Nazma Shahin said that the government should coordinate the work between the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution and the Consumers Rights Protection Department.
The Consumers Rights Protection Department’s director general Abul Hossain Miah urged the information ministry and the Information Commission to help the department in reaching the people.