5.
Thursday, March 14, 1974
GOVERNMENT MUST PROTECT MAN IN THE STREET
From Profiteering, Says Mrs. Symons
The government has a duty to protect the ordinary citizen from
being fleeced by unscrupulous profiteers, the Hon. Mrs. Joyce Symons,
said today.
"While the government may not be able to bring in rigid prico
control of ordinary household commodities in daily use, there is the urgent
need, I feel, to ensure that there is no profiteering on the sale of rice,
cooking oil, flour and sugar, to mention only a few essential items," she
said during the resumed Budget Debate.
Mrs. Symons pointed out that members of the public have often
been hoodwinked into paying more by profit-seeking. shopkeepers, and suggested
instant 'hot lines' to City District Offices so that shoppers could report
concrete examples of flagrant profiteering.
"These reports," she suggested, "could perhaps be tabulated and
checked when the present inspectors from the Department of Commerce and
Industry go round to collect figures which now are used in government statistics."
Mrs. Symons also advocated enlisting the responsible co-operation
of the man in the street in the campaign against inflation.
This could be done by co-ordinating them into mutual aid committees
which were so well represented in the anti-litter and anti-violent crime
campaigns.
/"After all,