Nine-Member Committee Appointed For Merger of CAC and FTC

Chairman of the Consumer Affairs Commission (CAC) and the Fair Trading Commission (FTC), Donovan White, has disclosed that a nine-member Merger Transition Committee has been appointed for the merger of both entities.

In his update of the merger during the CAC and FTC virtual press briefing, held on Friday, July 16, Mr. White said the committee is critical to the merger process.

The committee is responsible for making recommendations to the Board about the overall process and procedures about various aspects of the end-state organisation.

The Board was selected in May 2021 and subcommittees formed. This includes a Board merger transition committee.

Members of the committee were selected by the Board. It is chaired by Attorney-at-law, Kwame Gordon.

“There are a number of matters to be handled expeditiously as we are tasked with bringing this merger forward in a productive, but also an expeditious way that will allow for the seamless pairing of these two public bodies into one,” Mr. White said.

In addition, he said both agencies will shortly be relocated to a single site at 17 to 19 Connolly Avenue, Kingston 4.

“Work has already begun and should be completed by the last quarter of this year to enable the teams to coexist in a single location. This will help and hasten the process of merging the two entities,” he said.

By way of Cabinet decision on June 4, 2018, the CAC and the FTC were identified for merger and for the creation of a single public body to execute the functions of the Consumer Protection and Fair Competition Acts.

The Transformation Implementation Unit (TIU) conducted a review of both organisations and forwarded their findings and recommendations in June 2020.

The CAC is mandated to foster ethical relations between providers and consumers of goods and services in the Jamaican marketplace, while the Fair Trading Commission is tasked to improve the production or distribution of goods so that consumers are allowed a fair share of the resulting benefit.

Source: JIS