The Sunday News
Ngonidzashe Chiutsi Business Correspondent
THE Consumer Council of Zimbabwe has said the importation of substandard and poor quality goods will be a thing of the past once the Consumer Protection Act is put in place.The Government has just drafted and launched the Consumer Protection Bill which seeks to establish the Consumer Protection Commission, whose functions are to promote fair business practices and protecting consumers from unreasonable, unjust otherwise improper trade practices, deceptive, misleading, unfair and fraudulent conduct.
Speaking in Bulawayo during the Consumer Protection Bill consultations last week CCZ executive director, Ms Rosemary Siyachitema, said once the bill becomes law, a commission to inspect all the goods so that they meet required standards would be established.
“When the bill becomes law, we are going to have a commission that will regularly go and inspect shops and make sure that the goods meet the standards of the commission,” said Ms Siyachitema.
CCZ deputy executive director, Mrs Rosemary Mpofu, said her organisation was a “toothless dog” as it had no powers to stop business people from selling any goods.
“We are going to have a member of the Standard Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ) on the commission to ensure that the standard of goods are met. We hope this law is going to be passed as soon as possible,” she said.
Mrs Mpofu said the country had no standing law that bans the importation or selling of low quality goods.
“We don’t have a law that ensures that the electrical gadgets that we have are of good standard. The law is going to ensure that everything that comes in is of good quality and of good standard,” said Mrs Mpofu. She added that SAZ was in the process of coming up with the Standard and Quality Act that would also ensure that goods sold on the market meet certain standards.
Participants at the consultation complained that most of the imported products especially from China, were written in the Chinese which they were not well versed in.
Ms Siyachitema expressed similar concerns and said the issue of language had been a burning one which was set to be resolved once the bill was passed into law.
“The issue of language is a very important issue and it has been talked about for sometime because if a consumer is going to buy a product it must have a language that everyone understands and formally used in Zimbabwe. If you go to South Africa even if it is milk, it’s written in Zulu or any other formally used language and we want that to happen as well,” she said.
Furthermore, she said there would be full compensation to customers who would have been shortchanged, once the Consumer Protection Act was put in place.
The Bill also seeks to improve consumer awareness, information and encourage responsible and informed consumer choice and behaviour.
The Consumer Protection Bill if passed into law would result in the establishment of a Consumer Court and a Consumer Protection Commission.
The new law would result in consumers being empowered by the establishment of a Consumer Court and a Consumer Protection Commission.
The Consumer Court shall be a special court for the purpose of enforcing rights and serve as a court of record.
