As mem­ber states seek to more ag­gres­sive­ly im­ple­ment the Cari­com Rapid Alert Sys­tem for the Ex­change of In­for­ma­tion on Dan­ger­ous (Non-Foods) Con­sumer Goods (Car­rex) sys­tem, Hil­da Kelshall, con­sumer health and safe­ty of­fi­cer, CSME Sec­re­tari­at in Bar­ba­dos, says that coun­tries need to be­come their broth­er's keep­er in a con­cert­ed ef­fort to pro­tect con­sumers.

She said the re­gion con­tin­ues to re­ly heav­i­ly on in­ter­na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions for in­for­ma­tion, ei­ther di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, on dan­ger­ous goods that have made their way on do­mes­tic or re­gion­al mar­kets. "The prob­lem with this de­pen­den­cy syn­drome is that some of these in­ter­na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly the fed­er­al or state agen­cies in coun­tries such as the Unit­ed States, will on­ly is­sue alerts when the dan­ger­ous goods or prod­ucts in ques­tion are on the US mar­ket.

"How­ev­er, if the dan­ger­ous goods are in for­eign mar­kets they are not ob­lig­at­ed to act," she said."It is in light of this sit­u­a­tion that the Car­rex Sys­tem must be seen as a crit­i­cal mech­a­nism for the re­gion. Car­rex is there­fore not on­ly time­ly, but an im­per­a­tive for is­su­ing alerts and no­ti­fi­ca­tions on dan­ger­ous goods that would not be un­der the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket sur­veil­lance radar but would be present in the com­mu­ni­ty."

Dex­ter Mor­gan, di­rec­tor, Con­sumer Guid­ance, Con­sumer Af­fairs Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Trade, In­dus­try, In­vest­ment and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions said: "Car­rex is in­te­gral to the min­istry's dri­ve to pro­tect and en­hance con­sumers' health and safe­ty in­ter­ests in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Through it, we are able to pin­point a prod­uct which rep­re­sents a grave and im­me­di­ate risk to con­sumers' health and safe­ty and to alert the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to act so as to cur­tail cir­cu­la­tion of that prod­uct in the re­gion."

Both were speak­ing at a Car­rex in-coun­try con­sul­ta­tion in T&T on Sep­tem­ber 4 and 5 at the Carl­ton Sa­van­nah Ho­tel.T&T is one of 15 coun­tries vis­it­ed by the Cari­com/CSME Team as part of its pro­mo­tion and pub­lic sen­si­ti­sa­tion pro­gramme to op­er­a­tionalise and ac­ti­vate the Car­rex sys­tem.Kelshall thanked the Eu­ro­pean Union (EU) for its con­tin­ued sup­port and con­tri­bu­tion to the ini­tia­tive and oth­ers un­der the Tenth Eu­ro­pean De­vel­op­ment Fund (10th EDF).

Oth­er speak­ers/pre­sen­ters at the ses­sion in­clud­ed Michelle My­ers, con­sumer pro­tec­tion and pol­i­cy of­fi­cer and Bradley Ochilien, net­work ad­min­is­tra­tor, both of the CSME Sec­re­tari­at.

At­tend­ing the ses­sions were rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of T&T, En­vi­ron­men­tal Com­mis­sion, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, T&T Bu­reau of Stan­dards, Food and Drug Di­vi­sion, Min­istry of Health, T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, Uni­com­er Trinidad Lim­it­ed; and Amer­i­can Stores.

more in­fo

Car­rex be­gan in Jan­u­ary 2012 and its pur­pose is to pro­mote and pro­tect the in­ter­est of con­sumers in Cari­com by har­mon­is­ing and strength­en­ing the re­gion's reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work on con­sumer pro­tec­tion through:

�2 A gen­er­al alert and sur­veil­lance sys­tem to cope with emer­gency sit­u­a­tions.

�2 Rapid ex­change of in­for­ma­tion be­tween mem­ber States and the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at on a prod­uct which rep­re­sents a grave and im­me­di­ate risk to con­sumer's health and safe­ty

Prod­uct cat­e­gories cov­ered by the Car­rex are:

�2 Toys, mo­tor ve­hi­cles, elec­tron­ic ap­pli­ances, light­ing equip­ment, lighters, light­ing chains, gad­gets, ma­chin­ery, sta­tionery

�2 Cos­met­ics, chil­dren's equip­ment, child­care ar­ti­cles, cloth­ing, pro­tec­tive equip­ment, tex­tiles and fash­ion items

�2 House­hold ap­pli­ances, kitchen/cook­ing ac­ces­sories, ma­chine tools, fur­ni­ture, gas and heat­ing ap­pli­ances

�2 Hob­by/sports equip­ment, recre­ation­al crafts, food im­i­tat­ing prod­ucts, dec­o­ra­tive ar­ti­cles, laser point­ers, chem­i­cal prod­ucts, hand tools, ar­ti­cles for gar­dens and camp­ing

�2 Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and me­dia equip­ment, con­struc­tion ma­te­ri­als, fash­ion prod­ucts, firearms, ac­ces­sories for pets, py­rotech­nics.

The Car­rex Na­tion­al Con­tact Point (NCP) is An­isha Ra­mad­har, con­sumer ad­vo­cate I, Con­sumer Af­fairs Di­vi­sion (ra­mad­ha­ran@gov.tt) and Ava Bullard, con­sumer ad­vo­cate I, Con­sumer Af­fairs Di­vi­sion, as the Al­ter­nate (bullar­da@gov.tt). The NCP's can al­so be con­tact­ed on the toll num­ber 800-4277.

Con­sumers can ac­cess the Prod­uct In­ci­dent Re­port­ing por­tal for Dan­ger­ous Goods at www.car­rex.cari­com.org