Despite its weaknesses being acknowledged, repeated calls by consumer organisations to amend the Consumers Protection Act 1999 (CPA) have fallen on deaf ears.

In his paper presented at the National Consumers Convention, an independent consultant revealed that with regard to these pressing amendments, consumers bodies have been up against a brick wall for the past six years.

Mohamed Iqbal Mohd Shafi, who specialises in management and consumer training, said that both members of Parliament and the Federation of Malaysian Consumer Associations (Fomca) had previously expressed their shortcomings over the CPA.

"Despite assurances given both inside Parliament and outside that the Act will be reviewed from time to time to strengthen it, it is not clear what action is being undertaken or planned by the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affair to carry out a review," he said.

Among the key areas that need to be reviewed under the Act relate to consumer protection and redress for health, housing and electronic commercial transactions. The CPA came into force on Oct 15, 1999.

Medical negligence victims

Iqbal, a former consumer affairs department director under the ministry, said that consumer organisations also have not been approached for any discussions for a review of the Act.

"It is not clear which division in the ministry has been entrusted with this task and the progress that been made to date," he said.

"The exclusion of health matters from the CPA is considered among the major weaknesses of the Act," he said.

In his paper entitled 'Consumers Protection Act: Implementation, weaknesses and recommendations', Iqbal elaborated that Malaysians consumers were often victims of medical negligence, high hospital charges, dubious health products, defective health apparatus and cosmetic surgeries gone awry among others.

He suggested a health tribunal being set up specifically for consumers seeking redress for health related issues.

House buyers' protection

As for housing matters, he pointed out that house buyers were often at the mercy of developers who abandoned their projects midway. Their predicament is compounded by the fact that the House Buyers Claims Tribunal does not deal with claims arising from abandoned projects.

Iqbal recommended that both the domestic trade and consumer affairs ministry and the housing and local government ministry come together to make it compulsory for housing developers to buy insurance to compensate consumers in events of their projects being abandoned.

Another alternative would be the adoption of the 'build-then-sell' concept for houses.

On the matter of electronic commercial transactions, Iqbal said they did not come under the purview of the CPA "... on the presumption that these transactions would be protected under the Multimedia Development Commission Act (MDCA)".

This presumption is incorrect as matters regulated under the MDCA are not classified as consumer transactions, he added.