CPA will benefit consumers against unscrupulous suppliers in automotive industry

Some sectors of the automotive industry are facing major challenges in adhering to the new Consumer Protection Act (CPA) which is to be introduced later this year.

Control Instruments Automotive general manager Kevin Rogers said the Act will be beneficial. “It is designed to protect consumers against unscrupulous suppliers and private products with no warranties,” he said.

“Much of the requirements of the CPA are covered in the ISO14001 and ISO900 standards and therefore companies such as Control Instruments, which is both a manufacturer and distributor and adheres to these standards, have the majority of the CPA regulations already in place.”

“Consumers will benefit because the legislation will see many unscrupulous spares suppliers not being able to adhere to the legislation,” he said.

“Control Instruments already audits all its sub-contractors and has always had very strict supply chain and quality control measures in place.”

“In essence, if there is a product failure, the CPA questions whether the supplier has anticipated it, did the supply chain profit at the expense of the consumer and did the supplier take sufficient care to avoid the failure.”

The Act provides for consequential liability by the consumer and product guarantees will be strictly enforced and suppliers are required to produce labelling that consumers can easily understand.

The aim of the act is to protect poorly informed consumers from purchasing products and services that do not perform according to the intended specifications and that are hazardous. The Act will also prohibit certain unfair marketing and business practices which will be monitored by a new consumer tribunal.

This will mean that any producer, importer, distributor or retailer could be held liable for any harm their product may cause, if they could foresee the defective part causing such harm, and did not take reasonable steps to avoid such harm.

They will also be held liable for supplying unsafe goods, products that fail or defective products. If there are inadequate instructions or warnings, the entire supply chain will be held liable no matter who is at fault.

The Act states that every consumer has the right to receive goods that are reasonably suitable for the purposes for which they were intended and are of good quality. They must be in good working order and free of defects.