CAC Commends Motorists For Patience

The Consumer Affairs Commission (CAC) has commended motorists for their patience and for exercising their rights in seeking redress with the Commission after their vehicles were affected by contaminated fuel in 2015.

“We want to thank the consumers affected for their patience over the last five years. This was no easy feat, but we made it work. It has been one of those long journeys that the CAC continues to champion for the benefit of our consumers,” Chairman of the CAC Board of Directors, Donovan Whyte, said.

Mr. Whyte was speaking at a recent press conference detailing the disbursement of payment to consumers affected by the 2015 ‘bad gas’ incident.

Meanwhile, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the CAC, Mrs. Dolsie Allen, commended the 423 applicants who sought redress through the Commission.

“We are very happy that consumers took their rights very seriously by providing the requisite information, so that the CAC could carry out its mandate of protecting the rights of consumers. We had some consumers who called daily to receive updates,” Mrs. Allen said.

She highlighted that although there were no culpable parties in the 2015 ‘bad gas’ incident, the CAC believed that consumers ought to have received some level of redress for what went wrong with their motor vehicles, in the form of an ex gratia payment.

“I want to thank the Ministry of Science, Energy and Technology (MSET) for stepping in with Petrojam Ethanol Limited (PEL) with the funds, so that we could bring closure to this long-standing issue,” Mrs. Allen said.

The ex gratia settlement package, valued at $24.5 million, marks one of the largest payments secured for aggrieved consumers by the CAC.