A few weeks ago, the Beacon published a long list of bills that the government plans to pass in the coming legislative session. The list, which was announced during the Speech from the Throne, was followed on June 14 by an article titled “2010 archives law still not in effect.” I felt similar frustration 50 years ago, as head of the territory’s Library Services Department.
After devoting considerable time to helping the attorney general’s parliamentary draftsman finalise a National Library, Archives and Museums Bill, it was announced in the Speech from the Throne, but never passed into law.
Hopefully, the long-awaited Consumer Protection Bill — mentioned in the May 3 Beacon article “Penn: Consumer protection policy through Cabinet” — will not also stay in limbo.
The Beacon styled Eighth District Representative Marlon Penn as the “junior minister for trade and investment promotion,” but he actually oversees the Department of Trade, Investment Promotion and Consumer Affairs (investment was added in February 2015).
Mr. Penn stressed the importance of consumer protection in the light of “difficulties seen” after Irma — price gouging, manipulation of prices and so on — and he added that the proposed legislation would also protect businesses from unfair accusations, hinting perhaps at some resistance to his proposals in Cabinet.
He gave no other detail, so let’s consider a few areas for which this bill or some other new measure might provide regulations, including buying online; product labelling; customer charters in utility services; complaints procedures; and advertising standards. I shall also propose the formation of a VI consumers’ association.
Any meaningful consumer protection legislation must affirm minimum buyers’ rights to the fitness for use of the goods they have bought.
Ferry passengers do not continue to shop in St. Thomas for lower prices alone, but also for the confidence that their purchases will usually be backed up by greater after-sales services, as given manufacturers’ warrantees.
Hurricane Irma devastated one of our few stores selling electrical goods that could proudly proclaim, “We service what we sell.” Meanwhile, the warning at the exit to a large department store — which states that, effectively, it would accept no returns under any circumstances — remains the norm here.
Regional policies
Many countries in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, of which the VI is an associate member, have national consumer protection laws. However, concern at the dominant position in telecommunications being established by Cable & Wireless (trading as Flow) through its takeover of competitors led to a call for the OECS to adopt a common consumer protection policy.
A heads-of-government meeting in February 2015 decided instead to acknowledge the one already adopted by the Caribbean Community (Caricom) Competition Commission, which pledged to promote and maintain fair competition within Caricom for the “advancement of economic efficiency and consumer welfare.”
During Barbados’s Fair Trading Commission’s annual lecture in March on “Protecting consumers in the digital age,” an official from Caricom’s Caribbean single market and economy emphasised what anyone should know before ordering goods online from sellers in different jurisdictions.
Customers should verify their cancelation rights, delivery and performance deadlines, the contract’s governing jurisdiction, and consumer protection laws, in case of a dispute. Caricom is producing model bills on distance selling and consumer protection. It also has a rapid alert system for the exchange of information on dangerous non-food consumer products.
Product labelling
In my May 3 Beacon commentary, “The pill that changed my life,” I exposed the potential dangers from inappropriate labelling on some medications dispensed here. When their packaging and information leaflets are in Turkish or another foreign language, they don’t meet even basic commonsense requirements that the products’ instructions, ingredients and warnings regarding their use be in English.
As a major British soft drink company’s information scientist, I checked pro forma labelling on new products and established ones intended for new markets against each importing country’s food and drink regulations (e.g. the maximum permitted sugar or artificial sweetener content, sales tax notices and so on).
If an order was cancelled, perhaps because of a change in the regulations, I reversed the process, to find markets willing to accept consignments so-labelled, usually at discounted prices.
Do some private pharmacies knowingly import inappropriately labelled medications to take advantage of similar discounts? What regulations exist in the territory to prevent it becoming a dumping ground for products rejected elsewhere?
I have found similar defects in the labelling of many commercial products about the house, too, like a popular do-it-yourself chemical-based product carrying multiple warnings in Spanish only against its accidental misuse and what to do if it happens. Googling for emergency information finds conflicting advice.
I hope that the VI’s Ministry of Health and Social Development participates in the OECS’s Pharmaceutical Procurement Service, which bulk-buys direct from manufacturers’ agents about a thousand different appropriately labelled medical products every year, including 90 percent of those prescribed in public health facilities. The World Health Organisation considers that 850 of them enable patients with chronic illnesses like diabetes to lead productive lives.
Utility services
Services like public transport, water supply, electricity and communications (Royal Mail, broadcasting and telecommunications) should adopt customer charters with performance targets, reviewed annually, with appropriate “carrots” for meeting them.
Users have complained about the Royal Mail’s slow and unreliable services here for years, but particularly since American Eagle’s departure. It is particularly embarrassing to have to tell business correspondents that mail between the UK and VI takes a month by air, or three months if mis-sent by surface mail. Consequently, I have missed unforeseen deadlines.
Moreover, if other people have also lost several parcels in the post without any compensation, it is perhaps no wonder that they have since hired expensive private couriers to carry them instead of using services financed by taxpayers. One must wonder if vested interests are rooting for the status quo.
If the Royal Mail were to provide efficient postal services to overseas destinations, it could increase its rates to more economic levels.
Marketed in conjunction with the philatelic bureau and better housed, its true value to the tourist industry and local economy could be profitably exploited. The government should commission a report into the Royal Mail and set up a customers’ consultative committee to review it.
Other provisions
Appendices to the consumer protection law might include specimen complaints procedures for firms with 10 or more employees, with final appeal to a statutory body.
Model contracts between householders and small builders might also be included.
Meanwhile, standards in advertising should be drawn up in consultation with representatives of the mass media and include guidelines on what would constitute inappropriate or misleading advertising — such as advertisers who attract vulnerable shoppers into their stores and then hide behind unstated terms and conditions to renege on their offers, or try to attract students to spend money on unhealthy foods.
To combat obesity, particularly in youths, the United Kingdom has this year introduced a tax on drinks containing excessive amounts of sugar.
Consumer association
The public needs a pressure group through which it can collectively assert our basic rights as consumers and educate buyers into informed choices.
Such issues are too important to be left to politicians to legislate, particularly in the run-up to a general election.
It might be initially launched under the wing of an existing non-profit organisation, but seek affiliation to similar bodies overseas in order to take advantage of their extensive product tests and reports.
The association’s activities might include a revival of the short-lived tables of the comparative costs of a basket of groceries in different local stores, compiled by teams of “ghost shoppers.”