Critical Consumer Pat Sidley
SOUTH African consumers may soon have the advantage of the United Kingdom’s Consumers’ Association operating here. The CA recently sent representatives to South Africa to have look at the situation and is debating setting up an office here, which would also circulate a publication similar to its respected Which? magazine in the UK.
This Critical Consumer believes that we need the association here urgently. It would be decidedly in favour of, and dedicated to, meeting consumer needs. And it would not have to weigh up the hundreds of other considerations which make organisations like the ANC and the government inappropriate watchdogs over consumer interests.
The CA’s assistant director, Dave Roberts, was one of the CA representatives who came out here. Interviewed back in London, he said he was very keen on the idea of setting up a South African venture.
It would not be in the nature of an aid project, he pointed out, but would be a commercial venture for the CA, which hoped to be able to market its magazine successfully.
Which? and its sister publications do not take any advertising and are paid for by subscriptions. The CA, like several other consumer groups abroad, has a membership which pays an annual fee and this helps fund the considerable research, lobbying, policy-making and publishing ventures.
Of course, this country would pose a considerable challenge to the association should it open up shop here: those consumers in need of most assistance will not be those able to put much money into it; and the problems which most South African consumers have to deal with are a far cry from those of “developed” countries. But Roberts appeared to enjoy the idea of such a challenge.
And CA policy unit director Stephen Locke gave some answers to the kind of problems the CA would encounter here which made it sound like the asociation’s views could well sort out a number of priorities in this country.
Some of the problems put to the CA included the issues surrounding the petrol price. In South Africa, consumers may want the industry deregulated, with competition among petrol suppliers, garages, etc.
But this would mean that up to 75 000 petrol pump attendants would be put out of work. For the ANC or government, it means making a decision which has to take into account directly competing interests within their own support bases.
This applies to safety issues as well. The debate would go something like this: we cannot poison our populace, nor should we sell them goods which may harm them. But this is a poor country with very poor people and we should not create reguations which mirror circumstances in wealthier developed countries which put food and goods out of the reach of most people and which prevent them reaching the marketplace.
For the CA’s Locke, the issues are not as complex as they may seem. He believes certain principles should be put in place which would help consumers deal with many of these problems.
Consumers, he said, need choices, and they need to be able to excercise those choices with sufficient information: “If you are not applying stringent safety standards, then tell consumers about what you are doing.”
Consumers need to know what the costs are and they need transparency to be able to judge risks. “Where you cannot demand high standards, then there must be information — and that information has to be geared to your population.”
On petrol prices, Locke’s instinct was to suggest that there needed to be both systems operating: consumers paying more would get assistance, and garages not offering assistance would charge less.
He said two laws could be introduced which would meet many basic needs of South African consumers: a Trade Description Act and an Unfair Contract Terms Act.
These laws comprise more or less exactly what their titles imply: consumers would have to be supplied with adequate and accurate information about what they are buying, whatever the commodity or service; and contracts would have to be absolutely clear and accessible to the parties signing it so that nobody is able to cry foul later.
The latter would mean that consumers cannot give informed consent to a contract if they are not fully informed. It would apply to the myriad of contracts designed and executed despite the fact that one party is ignorant of all the implications.
We already have the rudiments of such law on our statute books. But some device would be added to place the onus on the seller of the goods or service, or the manufacturer, to ensure respect for the consumers’ rights. In addition, consumers should not have to prove negligence when claiming compensation for harm caused by a defective product.
This would mean that manufacturers and sellers need to ensure that illiterate and ill-educated people understand fully what they were getting into.
So when the government announces that children under six and pregnant mothers will get free medical treatment, it would have to ensure that there are facilities to provide such treatment and that they meet consumer needs.
In the UK at the moment, in terms of a government-inspired and government-implemented patients’ charter, medical services are being measured for efficiency.
Here we worry about whether the ambulance will arrive at all; in the UK, consumers worry about how long the response time of the ambulance is. Here we worry about whether there is a clinic or drugs for people who need treatment; there they measure the time spent in the queues.
We’ve a terribly long way to go, but we need an effective lobby to tell the government that whatever it is doing is never enough — and it has to be told from a consumer perspective.