Towards A Rights-Based Consumer Protection Law for Ghana

By Jean Lukaz MIH

Ghana, while still embarking on the necessary steps towards a new consumer protection law, cannot presently boast of consumer protection legislation but rather a number of legislations that deal with consumer protection issues. The lack of a comprehensive consumer protection law is often to be blamed on defective national trade policies that have evolved over the years.

According to the Ministry of Trade, the Ghana Trade Policy approved by Cabinet in 2004 is set within the context of Ghana’s long-term strategic goal of achieving middle-income status and becoming a leading agro-industrial country in Africa. It was designed to provide the Ministry with clear guidelines for implementing Government’s domestic and international trade agenda as well as ensure a consistent and stable policy environment within which the private sector can operate with certainty. To ensure that these policy objectives are met through the structured implementation of policy prescriptions, a detailed implementation blueprint – the Trade Sector Support Programme (TSSP) - was developed and launched in February 2005. It details out specific activities in 10 thematic areas (which together contain 27 sub-projects) to be undertaken annually for the achievement of the policy prescriptions contained in the Ghana Trade Policy.
The fundamental principle underlying the Trade Policy Is that the private sector is the engine of growth, with Government providing a trade enabling environment to actively stimulate private sector initiatives. This is to be achieved through the full spectrum of trade policy instruments across the ten (10) thematic areas that have been the basis of the Ghana Trade Policy objectives.

The new Ghana consumer protection law is to be based on the Consumer Protection Policy as captured in the Ghana Trade Policy with the sub-themes of Consumer Protection, Health and Safety of Consumers, Economic Interests of Consumers, Access to Adequate Information, Consumption and the Environment, Consumer Representation, Competition Policy and Government Procurement. Short of a single fundamental objective, the new consumer law must ensure a fair and transparent market place in which the rights of consumers are recognized and protected. Protecting consumers’ economic interests is as important as regulation to ensure that the goods and services are available at a reasonable price and are safe.

Ghana being a Third World country, the problems of consumers are more related to the provision of essential services such as drinking water, sanitation, education and health care, than the market-related ones. The new consumer protection law must give special attention to the basic needs of disadvantaged consumers, in both rural and urban areas, including low-income consumers, and those with very low levels of literacy. It must clearly spell out the rights of consumers and the responsibilities of suppliers of goods or services and regulate all aspects of the purchasing cycle for goods and services, from the advertising or marketing of products, the sale of goods, full disclosure of product or service information to consumers, the terms and conditions of contracts and after-sales services including the respect of guarantees and warranties, refund and return policies. The Ghana Consumer Protection Law must integrate the universally accepted consumer rights into law by referring, implicitly or explicitly, to eight specific consumer rights, namely:

1. The Right to Basic needs
2. The Right to Safety
3. The Right to Information
4. The Right to Choice
5. The Right to Representation
6. The Right to Redress
7. The Right to Consumer Education
8. The Right to Healthy Environment

As constitutions of countries have evolved to reflect a citizens’ rights-based approach, so are consumer protection laws. The Consumer Protection Law for Ghana must move beyond mere consolidation of scattered sectoral laws and regulations to crystallizing and reforming consumer rights as enshrined in the various laws of Ghana as well as fair trading regulations.

This will ensure an easily-accessible, consumer-friendly, cross-cutting, rights-based approach to the development of a single, comprehensive legal framework for consumer protection. As the review of existing laws is inevitable considering that there are a number of obsolete consumer protection provisions that need to reflect modern consumer economics It should not be a mere major review of commercial and fair trade laws but must make provision for the drafting of new ones. It must cover much ground to the extent of providing for future innovative business fraud schemes and unfair trade practices.

Many developing countries on the various continents such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Botswana, Uganda, Malawi and South Africa have moved towards a comprehensive rights-based approach to their development of legislation for consumer protection that was guided by the UN Guidelines for consumer protection under the themes of Physical Safety, Economic Interests, Standards, Essential Goods and Services, Redress, Education and Information, and Health.
Beyond the establishment of a Consumer Protection Authority and Small Claims Courts, the Ghana Consumer Protection Law must move for the creation of the necessary institutions to take care of general consumer rights, product quality and safety and the specialized area of financial services that will all strengthen the Consumer Protection Regime such as a Consumer Product Safety Commission and a Consumer Financial Protection Commission.

As consumer groups in Ghana are moving for the new consumer protection law, which they believe will protect Ghanaian consumers, the Consumer Partnership is of the opinion that given the present environment of lack of legal enforcement compounded by a lacunae of resources, a new act of law is no guarantee of better consumer protection although it could be a first step in the process. The Consumer Partnership also believes that some of the voluntary standards developed by the Ghana Standards Board, such as the Advertising Code must be passed into law making reference to it as a Legislative Instrument (LI).

Consumer Protection is not a one-way street and requires consumers to act responsibly as no quantum of protection can secure irresponsible consumers. Consumer Protection is a process that involves consumers, service providers, producers and the government in a blend of roles and responsibilities. Thus, a working definition of Consumer Protection proposed by the Consumer Partnership given this background should include

‘the responsible ethical behaviour of consumers, producers or service providers in the respective buying and selling of products or services and the effective control of the marketplace by the government through the enforcement of laws and regulations, the promotion of standards and the dissemination consumer education.’

This presupposes that for consumer protection to exist, prevail, and be effective, the following conditions must be satisfied:
1. Consumers must be aware of their rights and responsibilities
2. Consumers must be responsible in the exercise of their rights
3. Consumers must be aware of the ethical consequences of their consumption
4. Producers and Service Providers must be responsible for the consequences of selling shoddy goods and services
5. Producers and Service Providers must be ethical in the conduct of their business
6. Government must regulate the marketplace through policy, laws and regulations
7. Government must exercise its responsibility of promoting standards, Consumer Education and Consumer Protection through an Ombudsman and other supporting agencies.

Of critical importance is the essence of Consumer and Business Education as a government responsibility even with the enactment of a new consumer protection law. Consumers need consumer education to build their capacity to act as rational and responsible consumers in the market place; Businesspersons need consumer education to build their capacity to become ethical businesspersons, to serve consumer interest, satisfaction and well‐being for a profit, rather than to profiteer from them; and Manufacturers need consumer education to build their capacity to become ethical manufacturers to serve consumer interest, satisfaction and well‐being, also for a profit and not mislead consumers to profiteer from them.

The actions of educated consumers and responsible businesses are often highly effective in minimising the harm caused by shoddy services and unsafe products. More importantly, they do so in a way that poses the least obstacles to business activity and to the ability of consumers to choose the goods and services that they prefer.
Responsible businesses go to considerable lengths to ensure that the products which they market are safe for consumers and that consumers are provided with sufficient information to use products safely. Many Ghanaian consumers take for granted that they need to educate themselves about the safety characteristics of the products which they purchase.

In their own bid to protect themselves, Ghanaian consumers need a set of tools to equip themselves with knowledge for their own safety. These tools of self-protection include protecting and optimizing their limited resources, avoiding product misuse, seeking information on products before buying them, using their buying power intelligently by patronizing quality goods and services while boycotting fake ones.

Consumer advocates in Ghana have often made the mistake of thinking that knowledge of consumer rights and the enactment of consumer protection laws will provide a safe haven for Ghanaian consumers. In every country in the world, even in the absence of a consolidated Consumer Protection Law, various statutes in the various sectors of the economy already contain provisions that are meant to protect the interests of consumers and it is the lack of legal enforcement that has been the bane of the system. Some of these laws and regulations are the mandates of various regulatory agencies in the country that are responsible for their enforcement and there are consumer protection provisions in all of them. Prioritizing consumer protection within their mandate has been the growing concern of Ghanaian consumers as they find very little being done in this area. Most Ghanaian consumers question in whose interest some of these government regulatory agencies are working as they believe that these government agencies are more protective of businesses within their jurisdiction than protecting consumers. This is buttressed by the fact that government regulatory agencies have not got sub-offices in the central business districts and other major markets where most consumer problems persist and are more prominent than their present head offices that are unreachable to most Ghanaian consumers.

Even in those countries where there is an enacted Consumer Protection Law, consumers cannot profess to know its content in totality. However, just like knowing there is a Police Force that looks out for the violation of criminal laws that we may not even be aware of, citizens still have the responsibility of protecting themselves from crime by learning to lock up their property, keeping their homes insured, staying away from infringing on other people’s freedoms and learning which of their own actions constitute civil wrongs and criminal violations, etc.

Even with the presence of consumer protection organizations, consumers, thus, have a responsibility of learning to read labels of products to check the ingredients, date of expiry, etc since no organization or law will do so for them at the point of purchase. Similarly, consumers are to read and understand contracts there are given to sign before appending their signatures.

For more information, contact:
The Consumer Partnership-Ghana [The COP]
KDPM 28
Kanda-Accra

Email: jytlukaz-AT-gmail.com, theconsumerpartnership-AT-gmail.com

http://www.ghanaconsumerwatch.wordpress.com
http://www.ghanaconsumerwatch.blogspot.com
http://www.theconsumerpartnership.wordpress.com