Hire purchase bill to protect consumers back on table - President Ali

Hire purchase bill to protect consumers back on table – President Ali

Nov 15, 2020 News

His Excellency President Irfaan Ali

Kaieteur News – During the Annual General Meeting of the American Chambers of Commerce-Guyana on Friday, President Irfaan Ali announced that the government has placed the Hire Purchase Bill back on the table in an effort to protect consumers.
“The proposed hire purchase bill will provide much-needed protection for consumers who procure items on credit or through the hire purchase arrangement,” President Ali said.
The President expressed that he disagreed with the existing legislation on hire purchase, stating that, “this can hardly be fair to the consumer. The Bill will reform this unconscionable practice.”
This comes after the Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall highlighted that the bill is an important piece of legislation necessary for the reform of the hire purchase sector in Guyana.
According to Nandlall, the bill is to protect consumers purchasing items from businesses on credit.

Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall

It was explained that the current law states that an item can be repossessed and all other payments forfeited once a consumer misses a single payment on the item, something that can bring “catastrophic hardship on people”.
He further added that the Hire Purchase Act will prevent that from happening because it will mandate that once a consumer passes a certain number of payments, the hirer will not be able to repossess the item.
The Attorney General had said that hire purchase in Guyana is governed by a common law, which states that when you pay a sum of money monthly, it is technically counted as rent towards the purchase price and only when the final installments is paid then the customer becomes the owner of the item.
For a number of years, the Competition and Consumer Affairs Commission (CCAC) had been calling for the bill to be presented in the National Assembly. Director of the CCAC recently disclosed to another section of the media that the Commission has received the commitment from the Attorney General and it is expected that the bill will be presented in the National Assembly soon.
It was highlighted that many persons would have gone through difficult unforeseen circumstances which saw them missing their installments. Many of these persons had already paid most of their installments yet their items were repossessed, resulting in millions being lost.