Is Government infringing the Fair Trading Law ?
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Government especially CASE should not be abetting any of its Government-linked companies like NETS who attempted to increase its fees due to inefficiencies or monopoly.
This kind of monopolistic price increases has happened all too often. It is about time some government ministers form a committee to look into such monopoly which is bad for economic competitiveness or business.
There is a possibility too of an infringement being committed under the Fair Trading Act where cartels and collusions in price hikes or profiteering have been prohibited by law.
Instead of keeping tight-lipped about such monopolistic price increases by GLCs and government agencies, the government should investigate whether there is justification for NETS to use its monopoly to fix or increase prices which is against public or national interest.
If businesses can be prosecuted for unfair trading practices against the public or consumers, shouldn't government linked companies be similarly brought to book for infringements like price fixing or profiteering under the Fair Trading Law.
Should the public or end users be protected or should they be been cornered into paying unfair price increases under the monopoly of any sorts as NETS has enjoyed with the support of the government and its agencies.
First the government should look into the quality and level of service of NETS as a monopoly before even considering its reasons for one-sided increases of fees.
I could recall one incident some three years ago when I had the occasion to use NETS service to install a car park cash card system.
After the promises and signing on the dotted lines, the NETS system was installed but was found to be malfunctioning without any attempts to fix the problems.
Eventually through trial and error by the layman staff, the car park cash card system's malfunction was traced to incompatibility of CPTs being used.
No one from NETS was bothered enough to attend to the problem. The blame was quickly put on the faulty CPTs as being caused by some imperfect manufacturing process.
Why with so many engineers in charge was there no one able to prevent or preempt such manufacturing defects causing days of disruption to the whole cash-card car park system and great inconvenience to the public.
Because of such inefficiencies caused by monopoly status of NETS customers had to suffer in silence. Complaints written to its directors were ignored.
So if NETS were to say its increases were necessary to cover its higher costs of operations, the above-mentioned incident should offer an insight into how such higher costs had occurred - inefficiencies of operations and management due to monopoly.
Obviously hidden inefficiencies were not resolved as shown in its inability to take care of simple manufacturing quality check. Such inefficiencies inevitably due to monopoly are being passed back to the customers and end users by NETS because of lack of competition or supervision. -
the same reason why pap dun wan to see opposition in the government.
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Hi Ito san,
You have put it so simply - self-centredness. -
they learnt from the gabrament....
increase pay of the ministers to remain competitive..
increase GST to help the poor..
so hey.. increase NETS costs to 'remain competitive' -
*shrug* Any law in this country exists only at the Govt's convenience. If the law becomes an obstacle, the Govt removes it, or ignores it. If a law exist to keep the relevant parties in check, but the Govt has viewed it an irritant, it removes it.
We practically live in a lawless land really, relatively speaking. -
That is made possible because of the lack of opposition in Parliament.Originally posted by Fingolfin_Noldor:*shrug* Any law in this country exists only at the Govt's convenience. If the law becomes an obstacle, the Govt removes it, or ignores it. If a law exist to keep the relevant parties in check, but the Govt has viewed it an irritant, it removes it.
We practically live in a lawless land really, relatively speaking.
51%(simple majority) votes are needed to enact ordinary law.
67% (speical majority) votes are needed on the second and third reading of a bill that amendeds the constitution(which is the supreme law of the land).
Needless to say PAP has met both criteria exceedingly, hence has to unchecked power to created laws to their will.
Even the president's Veto power is has been removed.(verification needed)
Due to the tradition of the "party-whip" enforcing party discipline, no PAP member will vote agianst a PAP proposed bill. -
The PAP is largely viewed as some rich man's club to get connections etc. Not much different from the Communist Party of China, or UMNO or any other political party in any of the totalitarian Govts of Asia.Originally posted by Jontst78:That is made possible because of the lack of opposition in Parliament.
51%(simple majority) votes are needed to enact ordinary law.
67% (speical majority) votes are needed on the second and third reading of a bill that amendeds the constitution(which is the supreme law of the land).
Needless to say PAP has met both criteria exceedingly, hence has to unchecked power to created laws to their will.
Even the president's Veto power is has been removed.(verification needed)
Due to the tradition of the "party-whip" enforcing party discipline, no PAP member will vote agianst a PAP proposed bill.
Pathetic really. These people aren't there for anything more than power instead of helping the people.