In an earlier piece I wrote on the need for taking steps to protect the rights of consumers in the Kingdom, stressing the role of the municipal councils in this field.
Though the ministries of commerce, municipal and rural affairs, water and health and government departments such as the General Authority of Civil Aviation and the Saudi Standards Organization (SASO) are responsible for protecting the rights of the consumers, strictly speaking there is no governmental or nongovernmental organization that could be called a “consumer rights society” that looks after the interests of the citizens as consumers. “The national board for the protection of the consumer affairs” is in the pipeline but that will not, apparently, be an independent body.
In the present system, the Commerce and Industry Ministry has a major role in protecting the consumer rights. Its various departments undertake the task of guaranteeing the supply of safe and healthy food and other products in the country. The regulations laid down by the anti-fraud and general supervision departments take care of the trademark system, precious metals and stones regulations, standards and measurements system and commercial agency regulations. The ministry has also provided an office to receive complaints from the public with toll-free telephone number 014035555, fax: 014093047 and the web address http://www.commerce.gov.sa/.
While the Health Ministry ensures the safety of the medical products and monitors violations with the help of its subsidiary offices dealing with the medical and pharmaceutical licensing, the Ministry of Water and Electricity supervises the water bottling companies. SASO makes sure that the companies stick to the regulations governing the specifications of every product.
There is, however, some sort of inadequacy in fixing the jurisdiction of some ministries with respect to the consumer protection. For instance the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and the Commerce and Industry Ministry are responsible for the safety of the food market. The municipal administration’s jurisdiction is limited to perishable commodities such as meat, poultry products, fish, bread, dairy products, cooked food etc. It has no jurisdiction over the food products that have a longer shell-life.
The Civil Aviation Authority’s domain is limited to the activities of the Saudi Airlines. Being another government establishment, the Civil Aviation has some limitations in monitoring the airline’s services. It is also a fact that government agencies dealing with the protection of consumer rights are not sufficiently conversant with international developments in the filed.
The current regulations in the Kingdom primarily focus on the protection of the rights of the distributors and fraudulent practices and not on the protection of the ordinary consumers. The man in the street needs greater protection of the ministry’s regulations; the absence of such protection drives the consumer to a fraudster or greedy distributor without effective competition. He may be looking for cheap products. A consumer is denied damages for an inferior quality product unless he moves the law court. And even in that case the consumer is eligible for compensation only in cases of commercial fraud. The majority of consumers never get any effective help from the activities of the government agencies in their quest for the redress of the injustice done to them at the market. Only the media, which has several limitations, offers some sort of consolation to them. The media is, apparently, not the competent authority to summon the culprit and restore the deprived rights of a consumer. In fact there is no single competent agency to help the consumer. Let us take the instance of the reported marketing of certain brand of skin beauty cream in the Kingdom.
The research studies at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital detected dangerously high levels of mercury in the product. The brand is still marketed with no steps to stop such hazardous goods. It is not clear if it is the responsibility of the Commerce and Industry Ministry, Health Ministry or the SASO to make a strong move in such a situation.
In the vital bottled water sector there are several steps to be taken to protect the interests of the consumers. It is not a secret that our children are offered juices that contain sweeteners, colorants and preservatives at higher levels than internationally permitted. It is to be noted with concern that these are products not imported but manufactured in the Kingdom.
In short our markets are vulnerable and unprotected. In the absence of strict monitoring, accountability, laws without loopholes and easy access to courts it is not surprising that the exploitation of the consumers by the powerful companies is on the increase.
It is in this context that the role of the municipal council that enjoys greater independence becomes more significant in protecting a consumers’ right to safe, clean and healthy environment and quality products.
