Dark Tourism in Ghana: A Pathology of Consumer Protection

By Jean Lukaz MIH, MTS

Yesterday a family of nine was kaput from eating contaminated food. Well, call it food poisoning, suicide, homicide, or consumercide, the culprit this time was food that was injurious to health and unfit for consumption and the victims are already dead.

When consumers die from food poisoning, the culprits go free...it is a dog’s world. Anytime the cause of death is food-centered, authorities in Ghana seem to play a certain kind of music reminiscent of the world of ‘let the dead bury their dead’…life is so cheap, who cares? All deaths from food poisoning are treated as if they are cases of cholera: the cause is in the corpse. Like Thomas Hobbes observed on the effects of rationalization, “

men have undertaken to kill their kings… provided before he do it he call him tyrant. For they say not regicide, that is, killing of a king, but tyrannicide, that is, killing of a tyrant, is lawful.” [LEVIATHAN, XXIX].

School children die from food poisoning and the traceable food vendor is back the next day to sell and kill more kids: business as usual. It is much less disconcerting to take credit for having a reducing balance formula for number of deaths caused by food poisoning as the years go by in order to show how we are improving.

In a country, where imported vehicles that have been declared not road worthy in the originating countries, after being involved in motor accidents, are a luxury and are free from legal encumbrances, deaths from motor accidents caused by defective vehicles bearing tested and passed license plates instead of ‘DV’ number plates do not receive much attention. Grim and gory photographs of motor accident deaths are a big sell for newspapers because we have grown to become thana-tourists of our bereaved existence.

Just stand by the roadside each morning and watch soon-to-happen disasters: school children being transported in smoking and decrepit buses like bags of rice packed on top of each other destined for quasi-luxury private schools and ask yourself who really do not care…PARENTS! And they will blame the government for lack of regulation when the former have got brains, eyes and two feet to vote with.

Do we have to go far? Presidential campaigners fall through a constructed platform right in camera and they become a laughing stock. See who’s laughing out loud? The contractor! Party goers die from food poisoning and it is ungrateful to take on the irresponsible host for sending you to your grave earlier than you pretended. When you go unlucky with fake medicines, it was a clinical trial gone badly and that makes it legally sound as a dose for those who need to cleanse their consciences from cognitive dissonance.

A case of CAVEAT EMPTOR --let the buyer beware—consumers in Ghana have long remained pawns on the chessboard of Consumer Protection.

Pathology is a branch of medical science that studies the causes and nature and effects of diseases including evidence of mentally disturbed conditions but this consumer disease does not need be diagnosed by autopsy since the causes of death are not in the corpse but are rather staring in our faces daily. Thanatology, the branch of science that studies death has become our social diet.

And as if we love the dead more than the living, there always seems to be more money to be made through funerals than through christenings, even if there is no insurance money to be claimed. This is forensic evidence that our nation Ghana has gone pathologically mad again…only short footbridges to cross from gastronomy to pathology to thanatology and we are the new living tourists seeking thrills from the dead.

Black Plastic, the Devil and Consumer Issues

By Jean Lukaz MIH

At a recent consumer meeting of The Consumer Partnership (The COP), issues were raised concerning the colour black being used in the production of plastic bags, bowls, buckets, etc and their implications as to the quality of the materials used and also issues not necessarilly technical but regarding the spiritual connotations of the colour black. It must be noted that black plastics are usually the product of recycled waste and by implication all black plasticware must not be used for food storage, food production, food transfer or food consumption.
Black plastic bags in Ghana are usually referred to as “Ewiase ye sum” meaning ‘It’s a dark world’ and connoting all that is concealed by the colour black and by implication inside the bag.

Technically, test reports from the Ghana Standards Board (GSB) indicate that the testing laboratory automatically does not check for the quality of black platic bags, black plastic bowls, black plastic buckets and black plastic waste bins [now being used by Ghanaian consumers to store water] in relation to their use for food for human consumption unless the description of the product categorically indicates that they are going to be used for food storage, food preparation, food transfer or food consumption purposes. This is because they are by default not meant to be used for food purposes.

What then happens to consumer misuse as is the prevalent situation in Ghana? You guess!

Black plastic cutlery and plates have been discovered in some of the so called high class stores such as Koala at Osu and even National Security has picked up on the emerging issue of the Black Plastic Menace in Ghana made in China and Ghana being sold in these shops. It is even worse in the open marketplaces where the majority of illiterate and ignorant Ghanaian consumers patronise these products to the risk of their health and safety.

Some factories in the Accra industrial area are being reported to be recycling plastic from e-waste, car batteries and other toxic components in the manufacture of these black plastic cutlery, plates, bowls, buckets and bins/water containers and concealing the pigmentation with black dyes.
Expert opinion from the GSB also refers to the use of other colours apart from black in dyeing toxic recycled plastics. The dangers are worse when hot food is kept in these placticware as it catalyses the migration of toxins from the plasticware into the food that has the likelihood of causing cancer.

…And what has black plasticware got to do with the devil? You decide!
Are we safe?

www.ghanaconsumerwatch.blogspot.com
www.ghanaconsumerwatch.wordpress.com
www.theconsumerpartnership.wordpress.com

Ban Monsodium Glutamate in Ghana!!!

The effects are known but regulators are silent and blame consumer advocates and consumers for keeping quiet and product misuse respectively. On air yesternight, 23rd April 2009 at 9pm on TV Africa 'Oman Yi Mu  Nsem' the host, Adakabre blamed Consumer Advocates for their silence and did not leave out the standards and regulatory agencies for their lack of consumer education on critical consumer safety issues.

 

Representing the consumer front, Jean Lukaz, the Executive Director of the Consumer Partnership (The COP) corrected some of the misperceptions surrounding consumer advocacy in Ghana, 'People tend to blame consumer advocates and activists but forget to realise that they also have responsibilities as consumers', he said. Jean Lukaz confronted the host, Adakabre as to whether he has ever taken a sample of some soup prepared by a chop bar [local/ethnic restaurant] to the Food and Drugs Board (FDB) for testing as he had personnaly suffered injury from consuming the product as a result of excessive use of monosodium glutamate.

 

Kofi Essel a Director from the FDB reiterated the product misuse mantra and charged Ghanaian Consumers to look out for bad products whilst alerting the regulatory bodies and Consumer Organizations. But the question remains as to how accessible these agencies are..nobody knows their telephone numbers and neither do they have toll free lines. Consumers will not take pains to look for directions to their office in the region of Accra, for example to go through any bureaucracy that will not materialise, it appears. Why can't the FDB and Ghana Standards Board (GSB) have offices in every district and in the commercial areas to make it easier for them to conduct market surveillance and for consumers to recognise their seriousness in getting down on issues?

 

Jean Lukaz further questionned the responsibility of the agencies and the government in disseminating critical Consumer Education (CE) and subsequently the roles of the National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE) and the Information Services Department.

 

We must reckon  that the laws and regulations in Ghana are in English and over 60% of the population is illiterate. How do they know the laws that govern their rights and responsibilities and how do they read the labels on products on the market to determine their safety for consumption?

 

The Ghana Standards Board (GSB) has been doing their bit with Consumer Education through sensitization workshops and media advocacy. This was disclosed by Prudence Asamoah Bonti, a senior officer of GSB on the program.

 

The GSB has also been involving consumers on their Technical Committees (TCs) as part of the international drive by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Consumer Policy Committee for Developing Countries (DEVCO/COPOLCO) in promoting consumer participation in standardization. The Consumer Partnership has consumer representatives on several TCs and initiated the development of standards for the tourism sector under TC18.

 

The Consumer Partnership is calling on all Ghanaians being affected by the monosodium glutamate menace to get doctor's reports and send us copies for action. It is only by complaining with the proven evidence can we make progress on this. The COP is also starting market surveillance to collect food sample for testing by the FDB and publish the results for a Consumer Hall of Shame.

By Jean Lukaz MIH