World consumer rights day: Consumers have rights, or so goes the theory

Civil society members, activists demand formation of protection council.

ISLAMABAD:

There was a time when people had nowhere to go to complain about inferior products or services. Then came the Islamabad Consumer Protection Act 1995, which guaranteed the formation of a body to redress such grievances.

Almost 17 years on, the promised consumer council is yet to be formed. But what makes matters worse is that many people do not even know about their rights.

Hameeda Bibi, a resident of G-10/4, said, “Every month, I buy household items at different prices -- when I complain, shopkeepers put it down to inflation.”

The answer is good enough for her and for many others. To change this attitude of consumers in this city, civil society members and activists gathered outside the National Press Club on Thursday to promote and inform consumers of their basic rights.

Organised by The Network for Consumer Protection (TNCP) on World Consumer Rights Day, the walk’s theme was “Our money, our rights: campaigning for real choice in financial services”.

Participants expressed their concern about financial institutions working to target additional consumers as opposed to facilitating and satisfying their existing consumers.

Call for protection of consumers

In separate interviews and statements on Wednesday and Thursday, civil society members and human rights activists urged the administration to make the consumer council functional immediately, expressing their concerns over the lack of awareness of consumer protection.

TNCP Executive Coordinator Nadeem Iqbal said that consumer education is an important part of protecting consumers, but is ignored in light of the non-implementation of consumer laws. He said that consumer councils are mandated to educate consumers to increase awareness of their rights under consumer protection laws, but no such initiative has been taken to educate them here.

“[World Consumers Day] is an opportunity to promote the basic rights of all consumers and demand that these rights be respected and protected, while protesting the market and social injustices undermining them,” Iqbal said.

Advocate Masroor Shah said that he was concerned that the “residents of Islamabad, of which a majority are educated, are unaware of their basic rights”. He added that an independent consumer court should be fully functional in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). These matters should make their ways to the already-burdened existing courts, he added.

Writer and human rights activist Harris Khalique said that there is presently no regulation authority which controls the pricing of products and services, which has resulted in the open looting of consumers.

Islamabad Deputy Commissioner Amir Ali Ahmed was not immediately available for a comment. It is the ICT administration’s responsibility to form the council.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 16^th, 2012.