The ICCC Appointments Committee has recently re-appointed Paulus Ain as the Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer of the Independent Consumer and Competition Commission for the next five years. This was made official by the National Gazette No. G669 of 6th October 2020.
Commissioner Ain expressed his gratitude to the government for its decision. He said, “On behalf of my family and the people of Jiwaka, I would like to thank the Marape Basil Government for having confidence in me by my reappointment as Commissioner to serve our consumers and the business community for the next five years. I am willing to carry on from where I stopped and will continue to support the Government to take back PNG by ensuring our markets are competitive, that consumers are well protected and that there is regulatory compliance by the regulated industries and entities.”
He added that he would zero in on the legislation relating to consumer protection. “Different government agencies and departments seem to have their own consumer protection functions and I think this is not serving our consumers well,” he said. “We need to realign and centralise it; for example, the Food Sanitations Act which deals with all food-related issues rests with the Department of Health while the consumer issues relating to finance is with the Bank of PNG, and ICT consumer-related issues are with NICTA. The ICCC has been struggling with this and related issues so will be working with these agencies and departments that I’ve mentioned so we have consumer protection centralised.”
