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"id": 195317,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Mungatana",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Medical Services",
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"legal_name": "Danson Buya Mungatana",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to support this Motion. At the outset, I would like to congratulate Mr. Midiwo for bringing this Motion to this House, to enable us also to put in our contributions. The idea of bringing a consumer protection law in this country is long overdue. The consumer law is a form of Government regulation which protects the interests of consumers. Right 768 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 30, 2008 now, as we speak, - and I agree with many other speakers before - there are many loopholes which allow people who bring in consumer goods to misuse and exploit the Kenyan population as a whole. In particular, in the rural areas, you will find that there are terribly big loopholes in terms of lack of information to the people. As a result, our people are, all the time, being cheated or given wrong information using the packaging that brings goods into the country. In particular, in border areas, you will find a proliferation of substandard goods that are brought into the consumer market. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have been affected in my constituency by goods which come through the Somali border. For example batteries, radios and other electronic equipment come when they are very nicely packaged and have very high-sounding names, but they are actually goods that are not of the required standard. The idea of having consumer law will bring some of the problems that we are talking about to an end. There has been a mention of various law enforcement agencies that have been involved in consumer protection in their own way. There are the public health officials who go around and say this or that is not good. There are those inspectors who come around and say these weighing machines are not good enough. There are those people who come from the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) and say whether goods are substandard or not. What we need to do, through this proposed law, is to set up what is called \"a Trade Commission\". In this case, and with a Trade Commission, all the activities of controlling and protecting consumers would be concentrated in one place. There has been a complaint about drugs which come into the country. They are generics and, therefore, are not up to the standards that are required. There are those genuinely generic drugs that have been approved and there are those which are fake. If we do not have a Trade Commission, with strong regulatory powers, we will never be able to deal with these matters effectively. For instance, if it is dealing with matters of health, the Chief Pharmacist has a group inspectors who will go round, but they are not properly enabled. The reason is that it is not the core business of the Chief Pharmacist to do that kind of work. But it will be the core business of a Trade Commission to make sure that consumers are protected by the Government. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, consumers in this country have been exposed to a lot of new products on which we do not have sufficient information. In particular, we have financial products that are being dangled before the eyes of consumers all over the country. You will find that banks, and other financial institutions, offer loans to people to purchase shares during Initial Public Offers (IPOs), for example. So, in their haste for quick buck, people accept the loans very quickly. They take the loans and yet they are not advised about the interest on those loans. They are not advised on the fact that they may take loans of Kshs500,000 yet there is no guarantee of them being allocated enough shares, and also on the fact that they will still have to pay the same interest on the loans whether or not they were successful in getting those shares allocated to them. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the financial products being dangled to Kenyan consumers include mortgage facilities. The banks are even going to our maids. So long as you have a salary, they will come telling you that there is this or that kind of credit card and urge you to take it. So long as you are earning your Kshs10,000, you qualify to get the credit card. They do not tell you the interest to be paid on those cards. They do not tell you the hidden charges. Our Kenyan population is also being pushed to financial products like various types of bank accounts, with all manner of names. Our consumers are taking it all. In the United States of America (USA), there is a big problem with home loans, because people were pushed and now there are foreclosures everywhere. The economy has gone into a recession, and people are now being made to pay with their blood. Your house may be sold because you were told that this mortgage was going to go like this and the interest was to be this much, and then when you start paying back things become impossible. When you are being sold a credit card April 30, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 769 everything is not disclosed to you. You then get caught up in a debt mess; from here, you are headed towards a bankruptcy. It is in the interest of this country right now to have a Consumer Protection Law passed. All the products that are being peddled to the people must have the stamp of satisfaction by a Trade Commission that must be established under this law to advise the Kenyan people on hidden things. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in Europe and other developed economies, they even have a website and advise you: This product is coming out but look at this and that; the marketers do not tell you these things. Kenya is like a raw economy. A lot of things are happening. Shares are becoming active now. Mortgages and bank loans are being dished out to people, and nobody is telling them anything. Insurance covers are coming up. Somebody will tell you that if you take this, then you are going to cover your sons and daughters. Later on, you are told that this policy is not the way you understood it at the time you signed the contract five years ago. Our consumers are being seriously exploited. In my opinion, time has come when we must formulate a law in this country about how we shall protect our consumers. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I believe that this law will give the ordinary consumer product liability, information on products and also cut out unfair business practices, for example, where you have misinformation being peddled by very sweet-talking marketers. It will help our economy to grow in the correct manner. My time is gone but there is a lot to be said. With those few remarks, I support this Motion."
}