As World Consumer Day is marked worldwide, the Consumer Protection Agency (CPA) has however said Ghanaians have nothing to celebrate as they still do not have a bill to protect their consumption interests.
According to the CPA, World Consumer Day would have been much more significant to Ghanaians if government had passed the Consumer Bill to protect them.
[contextly_sidebar id=”g5mIi932wPuTwrb7VomtUft46P0lGS2c”]Since 2007, the CPA and its stake holders have struggled to push the draft of the Consumer Bill which will protect the rights and interest of consumers in Ghana.
Head of Programs and Research at the CPA, Nana Prempeh Okogyeabour spoke to Citi News and said that the passage of the bill would ensure consumers get value for their money.
Mr Okogyeabour explained that the steps had been put in place to present the draft to parliament in 2013 and he even noted that the President had approved the bill.
However, the president gave the draft to the Minister of Trade who was in turn supposed to present the bill to the floor of parliament but that has still not happened.
“We got the bill, gave it to the stakeholders to redraft it and we presented to cabinet in 2013 where in 2014, the President and his Cabinet approved of what we’ve done, gave it to the minister of trade who is supposed to send it parliament for a debate and for it to be passed. But unfortunately it seems that it’s stuck somewhere,” Mr Okogyeabour recounted.
He expressed frustration with the lack of progress and said World Consumer Day was nothing to celebrate if there is no bill to protect consumers.
“We can’t celebrate. We can’t be happy as consumers when Ghana has been a member of the charter for the past forty-something years yet still we don’t even have a bill to protect consumers and their interests in this country.”
Mr Okogyeabour also bemoaned the current state of affairs that did not provide adequate avenues of redress to the average consumer.
“Utility service providers such as the electricity and water come out with strange bills that the consumer does not understand, but these days because they do not know where to go and seek redress, when something happens to them as a consumer, ‘fa ma nyame’ style come in and that is the end of it.”
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By Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana