KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 5 — Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs have received a total of 823 complaints mostly related to the rise in prices of goods since the implementation of the Sales and Service Tax (SST) on Sept 1.

Its deputy minister Chong Chieng Jen said from the total, 785 complaints were attended to and resolved while the remaining 38 were under investigation.

He explained to the Dewan Negara that a total of 205 notices under Section 21 (2) of the Price Control and Anti-Profiteering Act 2011 were issued for analysing and reviewing the traders’ compliance with the regulation.

He said out of the total, 95 were analysed and no improprieties were found.

"Apart from that, a total of 2,618 notices had been issued under Section 53A of the same Act to require the traders to maintain and retain their business records,” he said in reply to a question from Senator Rahemah Idris who wanted the ministry to state the latest statistics of the action taken on the traders who raised the price of goods after the implementation of SST.

Chong said to ensure that traders did not profiteer arbitrarily, the ministry carried out various efforts such as monitoring the prices of basic necessities and activates the National Cost of Living Action Council to discuss the issue of cost of living. — Bernama