Bakhyt Sultanov : About the work done to protect consumer rights

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Each of us from the moment of birth and throughout our lives is a consumer of goods and services. And the higher the quality of what is consumed, the better the standard of living of citizens. And in recent years, Kazakhstanis have become more demanding. This is evidenced by the figures.

So, for 11 months of this year, the MIT Consumer Protection Committee received 22,605 appeals. This is more than for the whole of last year, when almost 21 thousand people applied to the KZPP. In 2019, the figure was even smaller - about 7.5 thousand.

For me, an increase in the number of complaints does not mean a decrease in the quality of goods or services. In front of. The growth of appeals shows that people have begun to demand respect from suppliers of goods and services. And this is an indicator that our work on improving laws in terms of consumer protection is working, and consumer confidence in the system is growing. Ultimately, consumer control, coupled with tighter control by technical regulation, helps to restore order in the domestic market.

Digitalization also contributes to the growth of citizens' appeals, while simplifying the procedures for filing claims. Through the "E-tutynushy" system (and we have launched it since the beginning of the year), almost a quarter of all consumer appeals to business entities, public associations and state bodies have been received. By the way, the system is synchronized with a Single platform for receiving and reviewing appeals, and therefore all appeals are automatically sent to the Committee and its territorial divisions via E-mail.

I urge both business and consumers to use "E-tutynushy" more actively.

We are constantly improving it. We want to make it a smartphone app. I think that as citizens will have the opportunity to complain about violations of consumer rights, as they say, "without leaving the cash register," we will see an even greater flow of appeals.

But back to the statistics.

The analysis of the number of appeals showed that consumer rights are most often violated in the areas of retail trade (12571 appeals), household services, e-commerce, housing and communal services, the financial sector, communications services and air transportation.

But at the same time, curiously, in the opinion poll conducted by the Committee, consumers named completely different areas. The greatest indicator of dissatisfaction is not in trade, but in the field of medical services. In second place in terms of claims is the quality of Internet service providers. More than half of Kazakhstanis were not satisfied with these two areas. But in the third place, residents named services in the field of municipal transport.

Next year we will continue to improve the legislation on consumer protection. We will improve the legal framework in electronic commerce, we plan to consolidate the special status of the National Consumer Association in the law and introduce the institution of an Ombudsman. It will serve as the voice of the people and directly bring the existing systemic problems of industries where consumer rights are violated to the top officials of the state.