{"id":155799,"date":"2026-04-21T15:52:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T22:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=155799"},"modified":"2026-04-21T15:52:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T22:52:25","slug":"consumer-ombudsman-is-it-complementary-to-caa-which-is-inactive-to-make-it-active-and-people-friendly-or-is-it-necessary-to-establish-a-consumer-ombudsman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2026\/04\/21\/consumer-ombudsman-is-it-complementary-to-caa-which-is-inactive-to-make-it-active-and-people-friendly-or-is-it-necessary-to-establish-a-consumer-ombudsman\/","title":{"rendered":"CONSUMER OMBUDSMAN – IS IT COMPLEMENTARY TO CAA WHICH IS INACTIVE TO MAKE IT ACTIVE AND PEOPLE FRIENDLY OR IS IT NECESSARY TO ESTABLISH A CONSUMER OMBUDSMAN"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sarath Wijesinghe PC former Chair CAA<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

CAA main Regulator in the country<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CAA is the main regulator in Sri Lanka set up with so many expectations in 2003, yet the citizen only will be able to assess the impact and efficiency of CAA which is known to a limited number of citizens of the existence of such an institution, spending 137 million rupees per year with high salaries and perks<\/strong> to the chairman and staff provided with vehicles and \u2018handsome col. CAA is a powerful organization with powers to punish errant traders, manufacturers, confiscate goods and report to the courts of mis handling the trade and harassment of consumers and intimidating the trader. It serves a dual purpose of protecting the consumer and regularization of trade as well. Consumerism is at the lowest ebb in Sri Lanka that hampers trade and the quality-of-life cost of living and health of the nation which affects every citizen despite spending enormous sums from the people\u2019s coffers. Consumerism and economy and development is interconnected with trade and states give special attention on consumerism and trade which are per requests of investors and investments. Citizen has highest hopes and expectations of the CAA to bring down prices of consumer items, services, purchase quality items at a reasonable prize with quality and obtain consumer items with no poison or adulterated and the consumer will be in a position how competent the CAA to perform duties. CAA is to settle disputes among consumers and traders and whether the members appointed by the minister on political considerations are able to conduct inquiries or and whether the CAA has appointed competent offices to conduct inquiries will be found out at an inspection on the affairs of the CAA by a competent authority. CAA must give priority to ser up consumer organizations but in Sri Lanka there may be a handful consumer organizations when the CAA is expected to promote and establish consumer organization net work in the entire country as it has a countrywide network of officers just idling with inefficient and incompetent officers. The minister of commerce in charge of CAA is busy with political work and struggling with to defend allegations on the income to the bribery commission that has become a topic to the media aith other politicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consumer Ombudsman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consumer Ombuds man if appointed legally and following the procedure adopted by appointing the financial and insurance ombudsman will fill the gap and will be beneficial to the citizen waiting for a proper consumer regime and for the trader to regularize trade which is a need for the economy of the country. Ombudsman when appointed will fill the gap to ease the laws delays as this will be a method to avoid laws delays by settling matters in a friendlier atmosphere and less expenses and less time consuming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Countries<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other countries Ombudsman is appointed by the government. In UK rail ombudsman is very effective and in USA every state has appointed an ombudsman for various subjects. In India Ombudsman service is very successful and appointments are made by the state. Europe and Scandian countries the ombudsmen scheme is fiercely successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duty of the government<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the duty of the government to appoint an Ombudsman in par with administrative, finance and insurance ombudsman as a matter of urgency in order to clear blackleg of inquiries and for a more efficient Consumer regime to work hand in hand with the ailing CAA. Sarath wijesinghe PC 0094766530166 and you are advised to browse the net for other article by me on the subject and you are requested to join the Ombudsman group for further information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarath Wijesinghe PC former Chair CAA CAA main Regulator in the country CAA is the main regulator in Sri Lanka set up with so many expectations in 2003, yet the citizen only will be able to assess the impact and efficiency of CAA which is known to a limited number of citizens of the existence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sarath-wijesinghe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155799"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":155800,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155799\/revisions\/155800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}