The council of advisers Wednesday approved the much-awaited Consumer Rights Protection Ordinance, 2008 to shield the people from market foul-plays and unscrupulous traders engaged in hoarding, adulteration and artificial price spikes.
Commerce Secretary Feroz Ahmed said the council led by chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed okayed the law in its weekly meeting after amending some clauses made in the draft ordinance.
"The commerce ministry will now make the changes and send the ordinance to the President for promulgation," he said.
Mr. Ahmed said the Ordinance -- first of its kind in independent Bangladesh- would provide the government and the people "necessary weapons" to detect market distortions and rein in 'abnormal price hikes' that have put the consumers at the mercy of errant traders and producers.
"We are confident this ordinance will protect the rights of the consumers," he said, adding that the new law would send 'powerful warning messages' to the traders who hoard or form cartels to fleece the people illegally.
Bangladesh market has been one of the worst regulated in the world, which gives the traders, importers and producers free hand to artificially fix prices-especially during the time of crisis or natural disasters such as floods.
Successive governments have tried to enact laws to curb hoarding and market manipulations, but their attempts failed mostly due to oppositions by powerful lobbyists led by top traders, importers and manufacturers.
A draft consumer protection ordinance was placed before the council of advisers several times since the new caretaker government took over in January last year.
But the council found the draft "inadequate and faulty" and ordered further scrutiny.
Commerce Adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman had promised in April that the government would complete "all necessary work for okaying the ordinance by June". But legal experts needed more time to complete scrutiny.
Consumer rights groups welcomed the ordinance as 'historic and timely', saying it would benefit the country's tens of millions of 'hapless' consumers.
"It's a very good news for Bangladeshi consumers, especially the poor and the middle class people, who have been exploited by the businessmen for decades," Borhan Ahmed, head of Consumer Association of Bangladesh, said.
"We hope the government would implement the law as soon as possible," he said.
A government spokesman said the new ordinance paves the way for creation of consumers rights protection department and a national consumer rights protection council headed by commerce adviser.
"The department and the council would act as the building blocks for protection of consumers rights in the country. They would review the ordinance time to time and plug any loose ends," spokesman Munshi Zalaluddin said.
Under the ordinance, consumer rights committees would be established at the district, sub-district and union parishad levels, so that the aggrieved consumers can lodge complaints at his nearest doorstep.
The ordinance has entailed some two dozens crimes ranging from hoarding to flouting of packaging rules to over-pricing a product than its maximum retail price.
A person convicted under the ordinance faces a maximum sentence of three years in jail and Tk 0.20 million in fines.
According to the law, a consumer can file a case with an arbitration court against any hoarder, adulterer or retailer violating the right of the consumers.
A law ministry official said the ordinance has become a necessity as successive governments found it difficult to take action against the market manipulators and hoarders under the existing law.
The Awami League government took an initiative in 2000 to enact a law for protection of the consumers in the face of pressures from different rights groups and political parties.
During the BNP-led four-party alliance government, a draft consumer protection act was prepared and then discussed at the Cabinet in 2004. But it was never sent to the parliament for debated for enactment.
