The Government of Botswana has mandated the Department of Trade and Consumer Affairs to protect consumers against unfair business practices.
Specifically, the Department is mandated to provide consumers with adequate information on products and services and promote and protect the interests of consumers. This is a norm the world over and the process of globalization has given extra impetus to consumer protection against unscrupulous and predatory businesses. Free movement of goods and people across borders means that the possibility of acquiring harmful or poor quality goods from profit-crazy businesses is at its highest level.
The safety and
health of the consumers is, therefore, greatly compromised.
For under-privileged sections of our society, the need to acquire goods, especially food, at cheap rates far-outweigh considerations for safety or health. It is not uncommon these days to access a variety of meat from street vendors and hawkers, especially what looks like chicken meat.
In various supermarkets, we are sold mixed meat portions in plain bags and the onus lies with the consumer to figure out the type and origin of the meat. Nonetheless, our poverty situation means that, for most of us, concerns with product quality is a huge luxury. The quest to meet immediate basic needs dictate that the majority of our people compromise their safety and health in the pursuit of immediate human needs.
And all these happen in the full view and knowledge of the agency responsible for consumer protection, in a way that suggests that the small consumer is not a consumer or has no rights.
Poverty is most prevalent in small villages and remote areas, yet the Department of Consumer Affairs only has offices in urban areas and a few major villages.
They hardly extend their services to rural consumers who are sold food that is strictly not fit for human consumption. In cities and towns people (sophisticated and educated) including honourable employees of the Department of Consumer Affairs are sold bread that bares no packaging or expiry dates. Such bread is normally kept on the shelves until it is sold out. Meat is kept in refrigerators until it turns green in colour and could as well be harmful to pets. Days on end, such meat is placed nicely for purchase by valued customers. On occasions that the shop manager decides to take it out owing to irresistible bad smell, it is offered to customers at reduced prices.
In fact, it is a truism that when consumers enter most supermarkets and restaurants, their rights are somewhat automatically waived. In other words, if a consumer complains about having bought expired goods, the manager will ask the customer why she/he bought the goods in the first place.
Why expired goods are kept on shelves is never an issue, perhaps so that illiterate and unsuspecting customers and young children sent by parents come get them.
The bottom line though is that the Government of Botswana, in particular, the Department of Consumer Affairs, has never been pro-active in consumer protection. In fact, it would appear that consumer protection is not taken seriously at all. It is business as usual and it is a matter between consumers and businesses.
Consumer protection issues are dealt with reactively, that is when complaints are made by a few health conscious consumers and normally such complaints are treated with disdain. It seems that in Botswana it is not a requirement for businesses to disclose product information at all times and in the language understood by the majority of the people.
It is against this observation that I challenge the Department of Consumer Affairs to intensify and take their consumer education to the people so that people, especially the under privileged, are sensitized and provided with knowledge of basic consumer rights. If people in the towns and cities (sophisticated and educated as most are) are taken for a ride, what more about under-privileged rural people whose main concern is to swallow anything similar to food. My immediate assessment is that the Department has very limited capacity.
If it has any capacity then it cares very little about consumer protection to the extent that even its employees have been victims of unfair business practices. As usual, Department’s officers seem to have more work in their offices to the detriment of fieldwork for efficient dissemination of information to consumers. Perhaps it is not farfetched to posit that the continued exploitation of consumers should be blamed on entrenched patterns of inefficiency, inertia, red tape or outright incompetence that has become a defining feature of most government agencies.
On the basis of this, it may be opportune for civil society organizations to fill this gap as a matter of extreme significance.
Generally, civil society organizations are credited for being focused, people-centered and have fewer worries about leaving their air-conditioned offices for an extended period of time. They are less bonded by the prestige of their offices, their superior status in the society and bureaucratic traditions. Thus, the civil society organizations must take immediate steps to promote responsible and responsive consumer movements in the country, which will be responsible for generating increased awareness among consumers about their rights and responsibilities, motivate them to assert their rights and not compromise on quality and standards of goods and services. The media should also actively and aggressively promote consumer awareness and protection.
