Many shops in Kuwait caught falsifying prices

KUWAIT, September 7: Director of the Commercial Control Department at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI), Faisal Al-Ansari, said that 611 violations were recorded in August. Of these, 448 violations were identified during inspection tours conducted by the department’s inspection teams, which accounted for 73 percent of the total violations. The remaining 163 violations, or 27 percent, were based on consumer complaints. In a press statement, Al-Ansari explained that the Commercial Control Department’s statistics for August highlighted 95 types of violations divided into 32 categories.

These categories include:
Violations of the prohibition of certain goods and their circulation
General provisions
Recruitment of domestic workers
Regulations governing the sale and circulation of vegetables and fruits
Regulations governing the sale and circulation of meat
Regulation of after-sales services
Artificial price inflation
Requirements for Food and Trade Licenses
General conditions for the exchange of goods and services
Advertising data and invoice regulations
Controls for the sale of goods and services
Special offers and discounts
Rules governing warranties for used spare parts in cars, as well as installation and repair warranties
These violations reflect a wide range of regulatory issues handled by the ministry. Al-Ansari revealed that price-related violations were the most common in August, with a total of 73 cases.

This category included 49 violations for failure to set prices, 22 violations related to restaurant delivery prices and two violations for failing to specify prices and weights of bread.

In addition, cooperatives and central markets for the sale of food and consumer goods did not provide the Ministry of Health with a price list at the beginning of the month. He explained that violations related to advertising data, contracts and invoices were the second most frequent cases, with 48 cases recorded.

This was followed by 57 offences related to the replacement and return of goods, 47 offences against regulations related to trade and the sale of goods and services, 41 offences concerning the retail sale of vegetables and fruits and 39 cases of commercial fraud, among other offences.

By Marwa Al-Bahrawi
Al-Seyassah/Editorial staff of the Arab Times newspaper