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  by pltm
• Jul 16, 2019
• 2

(PLTM) - Premier and Minister for Finance, Hon. Andrew Fahie disclosed that when the House of Assembly convenes today, July 16, it is highly unlikely that the Consumer Protection Bill, which is on the Order of the Day for its second and third readings, would be debated until July 23 when another sitting is scheduled to take place. The Premier at the July 9 public consultation meeting on the legislation explained that the Bill will be defrayed because a number of Members of the House of Assembly are travelling.

"The 16 July is when the House is going to be meeting, however you will have time because we won’t be getting to the Consumer Protection on the 16 July. We'll most likely get to it on the 23 or 24 [July] because there's a lot of things on the agenda, so we decided that we will break and we will come back. A few persons would be away so that when they come back we will have the full house there to deal with the Consumer Protection; so you still have time..."

The Consumer Protection Bill, which was proposed since 1995, was given attention last year, and in recent days, was subjected to extensive consultation by Premier Hon. Fahie, Junior Minister for Trade Hon. Sharie de Castro and members of the Premier's Office.

During the Jost Van Dyke meeting on July 14, the Premier mentioned that the intention is to ensure that such an important legislation is as close to perfect at the time of passing.

"On the 16 July which is Tuesday, we would actually have on the Order Paper for the second and third reading of the Bill titled Consumer Protection Act. Before we go in there we wanted to make sure that all the suggestions, whether written or in the public meetings have been ventilated in these public meetings; and also taken into consideration. So that when we go into the Act in the House of Assembly, we can know that we have as close to a perfect Bill as possible," the Premier explained at the time.

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