Who cares for the Ghanaian consumer?

Last two weeks, I bought a pair of shoes at a shop in Accra. The next day when I wore it, I hardly moved from the bedroom to the car on my way to work when I realised that the whole pair had “disintegrated”.

I drove straight to the shop with the intention of getting an exchange. That, I was told by the shop attendant, was not possible and she would neither give me a refund.

The only option she gave was for me to give them five days to get a cobbler to mend the shoes for me. I found that outrageous but since that was the only option I took it.

On the fifth day I went to the shop to collect the shoes and after being kept waiting for some time, the shop attendant boldly announced to me that the shoe had not been brought from repairs and she was about to give me more days after which to check if the new shoes I bought had been repaired! At that point, I hit the roof and had to unwillingly show a little bit of my “Ga seaside behaviour” to get my money back; well I did get it!

I asked myself after the whole showdown if all that drama was necessary. But this seems to be the trend in most shops and with most traders in the country.

In our shops are boldly displayed signs saying: “No refund or exchange” and even some stating that “Goods once sold are not returnable”. A seamstress at Dzorwulu has a sign in her shop asking for 50 per cent of the amount charged for sewing, but guess what? She takes no responsibility at all for not delivering on schedule and would neither give your money nor your fabric back if she is not able to keep to the schedule she gives you herself.

For a very long time, this has been the trend in the country. Customers are getting ripped off and the situation is getting worse with seemingly no control over the quality of goods that are flooding our markets on a daily basis from electricals, clothing to food items.

The only relief left to the consumer, as I understand, is to officially write to the merchant, and if they refuse to oblige the way to go now is the courts.

According to Mr Appiah Kusi Adomako, the Coordinator of CUTS International, a consumer protection organisation which authored the first draft of a National Consumer Protection Framework Law in 2008 which went through revisions under various governments, the document is gathering dust on the shelves at the Attorney General’s office. March 15 will be World Consumer Rights Day and the organisation is launching an online petition to get 100,000 signatories to urge the government and Parliament to pass the Consumer Protection Law.

The Sale of Goods act (Act 137 of 1962) says that goods sold must be fit for purpose. A number of judicial decisions have gone further to assert the rights of the consumer over the issue of not returning goods that have been bought.

It seems one of the reasons companies/shop owners in Ghana are not allowing goods bought to be returned is that there are many inferior goods flooding the market, and they cannot guarantee durability of such goods.

The story is not different with the service sector. Most artisans are reluctant to come back to rectify shortfalls once they collect their money and leave site. A couple of years ago, I got a guy to fix a car canopy in my house. In the course of fixing, the fabric got torn. Initially, the guy picked my calls and promised to come and rectify the fault but he would not pick my calls again later. It has been five years since and he never came back to fix it.

It is possible that shop owners and service providers have now come to terms with the timidity of the average Ghanaian who would not want to upset anybody, even if he were right. The worst case scenario will be to give it to God or in rare cases, invoke curses of the deities on the offending party.

If the law is passed, the flooding of inferior goods would be reduced and consumers would be empowered. And this robbery of consumers /customers in daylight would be reduced, if not eliminated entirely.

Writer’s E-mail: doreen.hammond@graphic.com.gh/aamakai@rocketmail.com