Status of consumer rights in Pakistan

Ethics, honesty, and integrity are words which are preached in every religion, society, household and organisation. However their practice is at the discretion of those who are at the receiving end of these noble sermons. The degree of civilisation of a society is determined by how many of these ethical standards are upheld by the people living in the society.

Obviously the more civilized the society the more law-abiding its citizens and the more accountable its government, and vice versa. The law-abiding , civilized society protects its citizens and gives them the right to seek justice against unfair practices of the government and the businessman.

An extreme example of this practice is the US society where the consumer is actually in a dictatorial position. The most recent example of this is the case filed against the famous McDonald burger chain where it is held responsible for spreading obesity in the teenagers of America.

On the face of it it seems to be another past time of the over-ambitious lawyers of the law-crazy country but underneath all this, the message is, that every action of every company can be questioned provided the consumer is aware and clever, and the legal system provides all support to safeguard him.

In the McDonald case the evidence was simple arithmetic. The consumer panel contested that in 2002, a regular burger, small fries and 16 ounce Coke (22.5 oz of food and 640 calories ) cost $2.98, while a value meal (56.5 oz of food and 1600 calories) was costing $6.09.With research they demonstrated that faced with the choice, most people would prefer the value meal consuming the 1600 calories ,thus causing innumerable risks to the heart ,body and mind of the general public.

It seems the Fast Food industry in US may be going the same way as the tobacco industry which has shrunken a great deal within US due to restrictive laws and consumer pressure groups. Of course they have more than made up their lost revenues by aggressive inroads in the underdeveloped markets where consumers are powerless. This is because in the underdeveloped societies the ignorant consumer does not even know what his rights are, and subsequently what wrongs are being meted out to him. Despite laws which are supposed to protect the ordinary consumer against malpractices of the various private and public sector, every day there are huge scandals of consumer deception and official corruption where millions of lives are put to danger due to false claims of purity and health by the unscrupulous manufacturers, and billons of rupees of taxpayers money is absconded by the callous bureaucrats.

Consumer rights: Let us have a look at the latest report published by the Consumer Rights Commission of Pakistan (CRCP) which launched its States of Consumer Rights Report 2001.

The report is second of the annual series on state of consumer right in Pakistan. The report critically evaluates performance of various public and private sectors from the standpoint of consumer. It also presents a comparative analysis of their performance with previous years.

The sectors reviewed in this report include laws, education, health, food and edibles, drinking water, housing, environment, power sector, telecommunication, petroleum and gas, transport, postal services, banking sector, privatization in Pakistan, and electronic and print media.

To see the extent of violation of the rights it is also necessary to see which wrongs have been committed against which rights: According to the international consumer protection laws the consumer has the following rights: Basic needs rights: The right to basic goods and services, which guarantee survival. It includes adequate food, clothing, shelter, health care, education and sanitation.

Violations of right in education sector: Public sector spending on education in Pakistan is among the lowest in South Asia. National spending on education has rarely exceeded 2.50 per cent of GDP. At present, the literacy rate is 49 per cent according to official statistics, while experts have estimated that around 20 per cent people have functional literacy in the country.

Health Sector: The total budgetary allocation, federal as well as provincial, for health sector for the year 2001-02 was Rs. 25.406 billion, which was hardly 4.6 per cent higher than previous year.It is estimated that 10 per cent population suffers from Hepatitis B and Pakistan has one of the highest infant mortality rate in the world.

Nearly every multinational drug company is in the country, however there are many drugs, which are 100 to 900 per cent more expensive in Pakistan than in India.

Food and Edibles: More then 12 million people were added to the poor in Pakistan between 1993 and 1999. Currently, 35 per cent children are malnourished. Out of these, six million or 60 per cent are girls. Overall, about one-third population of Pakistan does not have access to adequate nutrition.

Food poverty incidence in Pakistan has increased substantially from 26.6 per cent in 1993 to 32.2 per cent in 1999.

Safety rights: The right to be protected against products, production processes and services which are hazardous to health and life. It includes concern for consumer’s long-term as well as their immediate requirements.

Violations: In Pakistan, presently only 40 per cent population has access to clean drinking water in conformity with WHO standards. According to official statistics, about 50 per cent of the rural population has an access to save drinking water in 1995 whereas this ratio is 71 per cent in all developing countries.

Unfortunately, there is no Clean Water Act and Safe Water Act in Pakistan.

Iformation rights: The right to be given the facts needed to make an informed choice or decision.

Consumer must be provided with adequate information enabling them to act wisely and responsibly. They must also be protected from misleading or inaccurate publicity material, whether included in advertising, labeling, packaging or by other means.

Violation: In 2001, CRCP and PCRWR conducted a joint study on bottled water brands available in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The results of the study revealed that 52 per cent of the brands were unfit for human consumption.

Out of 21 brands tasted, 11 contained chemical and microbiological contamination,while all of these manufacturers were claiming purity on each label and in every advertisment.

Consumer choice rights: The right to choose products and services at competitive prices and, in the case of monopolies, to have an assurance of satisfactory quality and service at a fair price.

Violation: Power Sector: The pace of village electrification has been very fast since 1992-93 until 2000-01. During this period, 24,243 villages were supplied with electric power, which means that roughly 2,600 villages were electrified every year. However, during the year under review, this number has suddenly fallen to 932 only, which is the lowest during the last decade.

The pilferage value of Wapda alone amounted to Rs. 14 billion annually. The energy losses of Wapda amounted to 24.2 per cent in FY 1996-97, 27.5 per cent in FY 1998-99 and 27.3 per cent in the FY 1999-2000.

These losses were covered by a continuous rise in energy prices which severely increased the cost of living of the consumer.

Telecommunication: The PTCL increased the line rent during 2001 from Rs. 235 to Rs. 282. The local call charges were increased from Rs. 2.1 to Rs. 2.31 including CED and keeping the call duration at five minutes. It may be mentioned here that in many countries of the world, local calls are toll-free.

Representation rights: The right to advocate consumers’ interests with a view to their receiving full and sympathetic consideration in the formulation and execution of economic and other policies. It includes the right of representation in governmental and other policy-making bodies as well as in the development of products and services before they are produced or set up.

Violation: Transport: The growth rate of roads has stagnated at 0.7 per cent for the last two years.The extent of neglect can be estimated from the fact that presently, 55 per cent of railway infrastructure and rolling stock has become overage. The length of railway track has not even slightly increased since 1998. In fact, the current length of track has reduced from 8,775 kilometers in 1998.

The Vigilance Cell discovered 2,741 cases of corruption by the end of 2001, which cost more then Rs 520 million to the Pakistan Railway. During the year under review, PIA increased fares by 15 per cent.

According to the official estimates, PIA has to pay about $ 6 million fine due to fake reservations. The current PIA fleet is more then 38 years old. The most new aircraft with PIA is A3-10, which is 8 years old.This shows complete apathy to the consumer interests.

Healthy environment rights: The right to a physical environment that will enhance the quality of life includes protection against environmental dangers over which the individual has no control It acknowledges the need to protect and improve the environment for present and future generations.

Violation: According to a study conducted by the World Bank in 1992-93 and later update in 1997, the economic cost of environment damage in Pakistan is about US dollar 1.8 billion annually in the form of health expenditures, loss of human hours, and resource base degradation. Pakistan has a total area of 4.2 million hectare covered by forests, which is only 4.8 per cent of the total land.

This is much lower then 27 per cent land covered with forest in developed countries and 26 per cent for the developing countries.

Conclusion: The consumer has certain rights and certain responsibilities as well. As they say in business that ethical standards by and large depend on the the level of tolerance of the consumer of that society.

If the consumer lets standards pass by and takes the brunt of it on his shoulders then the organisations are tempted to burden them even more. Take the case of the recent removal of ban on wedding food. It definitely is going to hit the ordinary man much harder than the elite. For the elite with their palatial lawns and palaces this ban was immaterial, but it was a face saver for the lesser classes who could, under the guise of this law, save the futile expense of food.

The masses are definitely hurt but they have remained quiet and not even protested against the lifting of this ban.

Either it is due to the hesitancy of exposing their inadequacies or due to a simple attitude of hopelessness it is hard to determine. The fact remains that their passivity encourages the marginally ethical sellers to become accomplished exploiters.

To create the right type of consumer protection environment it is necessary that:

*the government especially the district governments hold local consumer conventions where the basic consumer rights and responsibilities are debated through the local councilors to the various sects of the locality;

*the government should also study models of consumer protection development in other similar countries and with the help of the relevant NGOs establish various cells and networks to make access of information easy for the public and the organisations; and

* the government should implement the concept of consumer courts where the consumer complaints are dealt with at the earliest and with utmost transparency.

The most important role in empowering the consumer is the role of the media. Radio,TV and newsapapers have to play a pivotal role in relaying the rights of consumers and then highlighting every violation in such a way that it builds up a pressure to achieve the objective of either forcing a decision in favour of the consumer, or to act as a deterrent to the manipulative intentions of the wrongdoers.