THE BARBADOS ASSOCIATION OF RETIRED PERSONS (BARP) recently launched its Consumers Forum, with BARP president Ed Bushell promising a body that will be a strong advocate for consumers.
The non-profit organisation, which has more than 40 000 members, is concerned about the low level of consumer awareness in Barbados.
BARP officials reported that daily its office was inundated with several complaints from its membership on consumer related matters. Concerns were about issues including landline and mobile telephone services, Internet, electricity, construction, banking and retail services.
“BARP has a consumer affairs committee. It is engaged in various activities but one of the things that we felt was extremely important is that we launch a forum. Really the idea is to give BARP members a voice through BARP to deal with some of the niggling problems we get from certain companies [and] to provide advocacy,” Bushell said.
In fulfilling its mandate to be the voice of the 50-plus age group, BARP in partnership with the Ministry of Commerce and Fair Trading Commission will embark on a public education and awareness programme to empower consumers to make informed decisions as well as to provide an avenue for addressing complaints.
Chairman of BARP’s consumer affairs committee, Jon Martineau, said the new forum would be as strong as BARP’s members wanted it to be, noting that “conventional wisdom always tells us that you can make changes as a group rather than by individuals”.
“So we need to have a force, we can use BARP as that force . . . and the other aspect of it of course is the education part, which we are doing,” he said. (PR/SC)
