Who Protects the Consumer?

Having recently been a victim of attempted extortion by the NWC, I am in total agreement with the sentiments expressed in the letter entitled "Extortion by the NWC" in Tuesday's Gleaner. Like the letter writer, I have tried telephoning the Marescaux Road offices (many, many times too), have emailed the person in charge of complaints as well as the PR officer and even had a hard copy delivered to the president E. Hunter at the head office, yet not even an acknowledgment has ever been received from the NWC.

Now when you look at how the NWC treats the public and puts that in the context of how the Office of Utilities Commission (OUR) treats customers complaints, you have to wonder why that department exists within the OUR at all. For according to their ad on radio ......If you have a problem about a service provider, you should speak or write to a senior officer/manager at the company about the matter before appealing to the OUR My question to the OUR is, where you have companies such as the NWC where no one replies to your complaints, are you saying to consumers "forget it?"

Let me however assure the letter writer and other oppressed consumers of water (and everything else for that matter) that all is not lost as there is one (and only one) body that was set up to assist consumers and does exactly that.

That is the Consumer Affairs Commission at Seaview avenue, Kingston 6. Unlike all the others that are set up to assist the public, this body actually delivers and as far as I am concerned, consumers would be much better off if the Fair Trading Commission, The Public Defender, the KSAC and the OUR Complaints Divisions were all locked down and and a fraction of their budgets channeled to the Consumer Affairs Commission.