Dear Editor,
On March 23 2010 I bought an Inverter from Kennav HDL Ltd. This was found to be defective shortly after installation. I called Kennav and explained my problem. They stated that they sold hundreds of inverters and that mine was the first complaint of the type they were receiving. Kennav eventually sent a technician who worked on the Inverter at my home without success and eventually took it away for repairs.
He returned the repaired inverter, installed it and asked me to turn off all equipment on the circuit and leave only the lights on. This was done and he switched on the inverter; it sparked and shut down.
The technician said that the problem had to be the electrical wiring in my home. He arranged for an electrician who worked for Kennav to visit and inspect the installation in my home. This was done in the presence of my electrician. The two electricians agreed that there was nothing which they could have seen in my installation that could have caused the problem.
The technician was dissatisfied with the finding and asked that a further inspection be done. Weeks after the first inspection, the Kennav electrician told me that he will do no further inspection until there was agreement on who will pay for that job.
On May 4, 2010 I called Mr Nizam of Consumer Protection outlining my problem. He subsequently spoke to Kennav and was advised that I damaged the repaired inverter by overloading it, and in any case I had breached the warranty by changing the plug on the electrical cord for the equipment. Mr Nizam also recommended that I contact Mrs Tinniss of the Ministry of Tourism Industry and Commerce with my problem. On May 6, 2010 I wrote to Ms Tinniss outlining my problem. On May 17, Ms Tinniss put me on to Mr Hussein who on May 18 accompanied an electrician from his ministry to check the electrical installation at my home and found no fault.
On June 3, 2010, I visited the ministry where Kennav’s technician and I met with Ms Tinniss. The matter was discussed and the technician advised that he was authorized to agree to consider a refund from Kennav. After very little progress was being made on agreeing the refund I wrote to the PS of that ministry on December 3, 2010 with 3 additional letters ending with mine of March 12, 2012, which summarised the position.
Having had no response from the PS to my March 2012 correspondence I tried calling the Ombudsman’s Office and got no response. I also asked for help from known politicians all with no success. I am therefore seeking to bring this matter to the attention of the public for it to be known how little protection is available from the state against defective products sold to the public.
Yours faithfully,
Charles Quintin
Editor’s note
We sent a copy of this letter to the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce and to Mr Kennard Lall, Managing Director of Kennav HDL Ltd for any comment they might have wished to make, and received the following response from Mr Lall:
“I received your letter dated the 19th July, 2012, wherein you attached a letter from Mr Charles Quintin in which he complained about being unable to receive a refund for an item he purchased in 2010 and which he claimed to be defective after he installed it in his home.
“On legal advice I will not refer to the libellous and scandalous matters contained in Mr Quintin’s letter, suffice to say, that at Mr Quintin’s initiative, this matter is still engaging the attention of the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce (The Consumer Affairs Division) and my last communication to Mr Quintin by letter dated 17-03-2011 via the said Ministry, wherein a refund offer was made, is still to be acknowledged by Mr Quintin.
“It appears that the delay in resolving this matter lies in Mr Quintin’s demand that I refund him the VAT he paid, but it was explained to Mr Quintin that the VAT was collected on behalf of the GRA and paid over to the GRA in 2010, thus any refund of VAT would have to be done by the GRA.”
