Consumer rights and wrongs

Monday 15 March is World Consumer Rights day.

Coordinated by Consumers International, it takes place every year to highlight the power of consumers and their rights to a fair, safe and sustainable marketplace for everyone.

World Consumer Rights Day was inspired by President John F. Kennedy, who sent a special message to the US Congress on 15 March 1962 about the issue of consumer rights to safety, to be informed, to choose and be heard.

Later, four more rights were added:

• The right to consumer education
• Fair compensation
• A healthy environment
• To have your basic needs satisfied.

How consumer rights were protected during state of disaster

It is almost a year now that we have been living in a state of disaster. How were these rights protected and honoured during this time? Let’s take a look.

Although many people will have something to say about how safe we are, consumer rights only applies to goods and services and I would say we had no serious problems there.

As far as information is concerned, we were not so lucky. We were often kept in the dark about how government and more specifically the National Command Council reached some of its decisions, such as banning tobacco products and visits to the beach.

Consumer choice was also ignored when we were banned from buying cooked food right at the beginning of the lockdown. And remember when you could only buy closed shoes?

ALSO SEE: South Africa lost R125.4 billion in taxes during lockdown

And when we wanted to be heard? Also not so much listening from government’s side. If you wanted answers, you had to go to court. Complaints about consumer goods and services were also not heard during the early stages of lockdown and most call centre agents still operate from home.

Consumer education had to take a backseat too, which is understandable because you do not want to cram consumers into a venue to tell them about their rights, but a lot more could have been done about educating consumers online.

Fair compensation also did not feature much in the pandemic lockdown world. Some companies that were unable to open during the first stages of lockdown had to take their insurers to court to get their business interruption insurance and insurers are still fighting about for how long companies can claim for.

As far as a healthy living environment goes, government will probably claim that it respected this right by imposing the regulations made in terms of the National Disaster Act on us. However, not all consumers would agree with all the regulations.

Having our basic needs satisfied worked for people who had money to buy food and pay for living costs, but for the poor not. Although they received food parcels and the Special Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress Grant of R350 per month, people are still going hungry. People who could not work received funds from the Covid-19 Temporary Employee/Employer Relief Scheme.

Yes, it is abnormal circumstances in an abnormal time, but for how long can we carry on like this? When can we have clear facts about what is going on in our country?

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