Minister of Economic Affairs, Dr. David Estwick, chats with Chief Executive Officer of the Fair Trading Commission, Peggy Griffith (left) and other members of staff, during a tour of the FTC’s Green Hill office.
A team of experts has been put together to review all pieces of legislation that are administered by the Fair Trading Commission (FTC).
Minister of Economic Affairs and Innovation, Trade, Industry and Commerce, Dr. David Estwick, made this revelation today following a tour of the FTC’s, Green Hill, St. Michael, offices. Inclusive in this, he said, was also a review of the Consumer Guarantees Act and Hire Purchase arrangements.
The committee will be chaired by Professor Andrew Burgess and will comprise members from the FTC, Barbados Private Sector Association, the Department of Economics, University of the West Indies, the Barbados Bar Association, the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry, among others.
Without going into specific details about its composition, the Minister said the FTC had been established six years ago and an analysis of its legislative process was crucial to the identification of areas that needed to be strengthened.
He also said that no time frame had been affixed to the completion of the committee’s work due to the thorough and lengthy examination and consultative process involved by its members.
Dr. Estwick, who promised full disclosure of the work done by the committee said: “I want the public to be aware that such a committee exists and that the work was already ongoing and the public will be brought up to date in due course.”
Meanwhile, Chief Executive Officer of the FTC, Peggy Griffith, indicated that the committee was selected based on its practical experiences. “After six years of operations we have some very practical experiences in terms of using the legislation. So, we set up a matrix where we identified the provisions that we wanted looked at, we identified the outcomes and made recommendations in terms of the wording of the new legislation to give us more flexibility,” she explained.
She further pointed out that: “This matrix formed the basis of the Ministry’s submission to Cabinet and the decision to have the committee.”