Consumer Protection Bill

Andrew Layman:  PCB CEO

The Consumer Protection Bill boggles the mind.    The only hope is that the postponement of its enactment until April next year signifies a lot of objections to it from people who have an understanding of business.    Not that there is anything wrong with its essential principles, by the way.   As a consumer, I recognise that I am sometimes led by the nose by careless or unscrupulous businesses and I welcome the protection that a law of this nature should offer.    It is regrettable that Business cannot be defended easily in this regard.    We have been shocked by collusive price-fixing in too many cases to be naïve about business ethics.   

I wonder why it is, however, that so much of our legislation is marred by over-zealous righteous morality.    In the case of the Bill at issue the over-kill reaches ludicrous proportions in some respects.   I was told of a case in the US where a couple bought a lawn mower and used it to cut a hedge.   One of them was injured and won the litigation because the manufacturer had not warned that the mower should not be used for anything other than cutting the lawn.   In terms of this bill, it seems that litigants might win a similar case here as well.    Manufacturers, and suppliers and retailers, individually and severally culpable, will be forced to produce a plethora of signs and warning notices to protect consumers from their own stupidity.    Of course, there are many cases where this is absolutely justifiable, and legislation against ‘small print’ has to be welcomed, but I for one, do not expect that caterers should do more than tell me what each dish at the buffet is.   In the future, this notice should tell me whether it contains nuts or any other possible allergen.    And every time I buy something, I will have to suffer a lengthy explanation by the seller of the consequences of using the product incorrectly.  

In the UK, I’ve been told, there are groups of consumer activists who make it their business to challenge businesses whenever they find a way of doing so.  Apparently, a sort of manual on how this could or should be done has been produced to make it easier for those who wish to make this their profession.   Even without this legislation, there are consumers who use purchased items and then take advantage of the provision which enables them to return goods because they have changed their minds.    A man from Gauteng bought a fancy four-by-four and took his family to the coast for a weekend.    During the following week he returned the vehicle saying that he couldn’t afford it after all.   This particular story was related by an official of the National Credit Regulator to show how well-meaning legislation is not difficult to abuse.   

Sometimes, the technocratic nature of the legislation lays it open to such abuse, however.   I think that the Consumer Protection measures fall into this category.   They also fall into the category of those developed by people without sufficient understanding of the nature of business.   As in the case of many other pieces of legislation, the reinforcement of rights comes at a price, a price to be borne by the very people who are supposedly being protected.   All the extra costs that this legislation will involve, among which, by the way, will be greatly enhanced insurance premiums, will be for the account of the consumer.   In some instances, the consumer and the tax-payer will be one and the same person, for along with the rules comes several agencies and bodies employing a lot of officials at high cost.  

I find it ironic that this, and a good deal of the very sophisticated first-world environment legislation, should be regarded as a priority in our country.   That it is important, I don’t deny, but how compatible can the wholesale escalation of the costs of doing business be with the high rate of unemployment and poverty?     I also wonder about another irony.   The individual’s right of choice is a fundamental tenet of democracy.    It attributes to people the ability to make sensible choices.   Then we come along, in a spirit of brash paternalism, with laws which protect them from the asinine ones they are expected to make.  

We need a Consumer Protection law, but not this one with its over-elaboration and its striking imbalance between producer and consumer. 

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