Price hikes of school items: Report to KPDNHEP immediately, consumers advised
SIBU: All consumers are advised to fi le complaints to the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs ( KPDNHEP) should they encounter indiscriminate price hikes of school items.
A survey around town yesterday showed many parents thronging shopping complexes and department stores to buy school supplies for their children, ahead of the opening of the new term next year.
In this regard, KPDNHEP Sibu had assigned its enforcement personnel to continuously monitor the prices of items such as school shoes.
According to KPDNHEP Sibu chief Roslee Maslie, the ministry would take appropriate actions should it receive any complaint from the consumers.
“Should we receive complaints from the consumers and also (reports of) price hikes from our monitoring, any trader found to be committing this would be issued with a Price Control and AntiProfiteering Act 2011 Section 21 notice,” he told The Borneo Post when contacted yesterday.
Roslee advised consumers to exercise their rights by lodging reports with the KPDNHEP should they see any trader hiking prices of goods indiscriminately or indulging in unethical business practices.
Meanwhile, SMK Agama Sibu parent-teacher-association ( PTA) chairman Mohd Safree Mohd Kassim said parents with many children would be burdened by the cost of purchasing school supplies such as shoes and socks, stationery items, work books and schoolbags.
“Although there is the RM100 schooling aid, this is still not adequate, especially for those registering their children to Primary 1 and Form 1.”
Mohd Safree also believed that the cost of a pair of black shoes would be more that of the ‘oldschool’ white ones.
In this view, he expressed hope for a certain initiative by the Ministry of Education towards providing free facilities across the primary, secondary and university levels to all Malaysians – irrespective of their levels of incomes.
“For example — perhaps the government could provide free education for two or three siblings, from kindergarten up to university level.
“This would lessen the burden of families with many children.”