Consumer protection is a key task of the state

Consumer protection is a key task of the state

Today, on October 5, 2022, the annual meeting of the Interdepartmental Council for Consumer Protection was held under the chairmanship of Acting First Vice Minister of MTI - Torebaev K.

The meeting was attended by members of the Interdepartmental Council: heads of central state bodies, an authorized body represented by the Committee for Consumer Protection, as well as associations of legal entities Association League of Consumers of Kazakhstan "Republican Association of Consumers of Kazakhstan" and the chairman of the public Council of MTI.

Chairman of the Committee on Consumer Protection of the Ministry of Trade and Integration of the Republic of Kazakhstan Tynysbekov A.S. spoke about the state of affairs in the field of consumer protection. So, for 8 months of 2022, 17083 appeals were received by the CCP and territorial departments, compared to the same period last year, the growth rate was 180%, in 2021 9469 appeals were received. 496.2 million tenge were returned to consumers, compared to the same period last year, the growth rate was 192%, in 2021 for 8 258.8 million tenge was returned to consumers in months.

Most often, consumer rights are violated in the areas of retail trade - 48.2%, household services - 19.8%, e-commerce - 8.4% and housing and communal services (housing and communal services) - 5.3%.

A similar situation of the growth of appeals is observed for other central state bodies, 5.8 thousand appeals were considered for 6 months of this year. The largest number of consumer complaints was received by the Ministry of Health – 2869, and 41.4 thousand and 5432 appeals, respectively, were received by local executive bodies and the Consumer Protection Act for 6 months of this year. The increase in the number of appeals indicates an increase in the level of consumer culture of Kazakhstanis.

Also, the report listed the results of a sociological study for the past year. It should be noted that half of the respondents are not satisfied with medical services and Internet service providers.

The authorized body has developed the 2nd package of amendments to the bill, which includes:

- Institute of the Ombudsman for Consumer Protection;

- extension of the basic principles of consumer protection to industry regulations;

- notification of the Ombudsman about the beginning of public discussions of draft Normative legal Acts, by the developer;

- court sanctions against the guilty entrepreneur who refused to eliminate violations in a pre-trial manner;

- synchronization of regulation of public relations in the segment of remote (electronic) trade and its face-to-face form;

- endowing the authorized body with additional state control functions of administrative offenses;

- transition to a 2-step system for handling consumer complaints;

Further, the Chairman of the Board of the Association of legal Entities Association League of Consumers of Kazakhstan S. Romanovskaya reported on the programs of the Academy of Consumer Education at the Caspian University of Almaty and the positive side of the practice of post-consumer education. It was noted in detail the work on supporting socially vulnerable segments of the population in consumer issues across the country, about the developed interactive textbook on consumer protection, developed within the framework of the MTI state social order. Also, the Chairman of the Management Board addressed to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education with a proposal to include the subject of Consumer Protection in the variable programs (by voluntary choice of students) of higher education, to the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development about complaints from residents of apartment buildings about the Association of Property Owners, about the practical complexity of the implementation of the functions of the Association of Property Owners, complaints to the Cooperative of apartment owners, problems of tenants, complaints from Air Astana and Fly Arystan customers about frequent canceled flights.

Director of the Digitalization Department of the Ministry of Trade and Integration of the Republic of Kazakhstan A.S. Rzayeva outlined the issues of functioning of the Unified Information System for Consumer Protection "e-Tutynushy", as well as the plan for the introduction of a single QR code, which will simplify the work of all government agencies.

The report of the chairman of the association of legal entities Republican Association of Consumers of Kazakhstan

Aitmaganbetov Zh.B. voiced the problems of interaction of state bodies with non-governmental organizations, in particular with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, due to the fact that the number of fraudsters in many areas is growing. Unfortunately, this problem makes it difficult to protect the rights of consumers. Zh.B. Aitmaganbetov stressed that it is necessary to establish communication between Non-governmental organizations and state bodies, which will allow to directly disclose the problem and solve them promptly. The issues of financing grants for public institutions of consumer protection at the level of local executive bodies are noted.

Following the meeting, the following tasks were set:

1) Preparation of an annual report to the Government on the state of affairs in the field of consumer protection in November 2022;

2) Development of the second package of amendments to the legislation on consumer protection and its submission to the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan;

3) within the framework of Article 9 of the Law on Consumer Protection, together with public institutions and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the development of an action plan to educate and improve legal literacy on the protection of their rights by including appropriate educational programs;

4) implementation of the state social order for information education of the population, conducting sociological and analytical research on consumer rights issues.

5) work to improve the information system e-Tutynushy - digitization of monitoring functions, statistics, analysis in order to automate the processes of obtaining analytical data and simplify for consumers the processes of filing their complaints against unscrupulous entrepreneurs on the principle of one window and other tasks.