Press Digest - 90% of traders don't understand Anti-Profiteering Act: Survey

A RANDOM sampling conducted by Nanyang Siang Pau shows that a whopping 90% of traders do not understand the Price Control and Anti-Profiteering Act 2011.
They also do not know what to do when summoned by the authorities on suspicion of committing an offence under the Act.
Due to the hefty fine that can be imposed on offenders, many businesses do not dare to increase the prices of their goods or services no matter the circumstances for fear of unknowingly infringing the Act.
The Act was formulated to prevent businesses from fleecing consumers.
The fact that traders keep getting hauled up for unintentional infringement of the Anti-Profiteering Act has many businesses with half-baked knowledge of the Act fretting about having the book thrown at them.
Broadly, profiteering means making unreasonably high profit.
This includes mark-up percentage or margin percentage for goods sold or services rendered, which exceeds what are allowed by the authorities.
Understanding the concept of anti-profiteering is one thing, interpreting the provisions of the Act correctly to not commit an offence is quite another.
According to the Nanyang survey, only nine of the 84 respondents from Penang, Perak, Selangor and Johor, or slightly over 10%, said they fully understand the Act, which saw the introduction of a new anti-profiteering mechanism this year to further tighten the noose around traders indulging in profiteering after the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) two years ago.
According to the report, the majority of the respondents either do not understand the Act or understand it at face value, i.e. making unreasonably high profit, but do not know exactly how to label their goods so as not to infringe provisions under the Act.