Promoting consumer protection in Lebanon
The consumer protection policy should promote the consumers’ civil rights, and the development of the private sector. What about Lebanon’s plan of action in this field? An activist gives us his opinion.
he promulgation of the Consumer protection law N-659 in Lebanon goes along with the process of modernizing laws essential for the country’s development. This should be completed by the introduction of other legislations on competition, anti-monopoly, alimentary security, dumping and credit. For the past few years, governments and economic forces have forgotten about the consumer’s interests, instead of making them a priority. Let us remember the meeting held in 2000 between a delegation of Lebanon Consumers’ Association and the minister of Economy and Trade then. When the members of the delegation submitted a consumer protection bill, the minister replied: “I can't see the benefits of such law. If one day it is promulgated, who would be able to enforce it?”
A twist of fate: 6 months later, the discussions on the Euromed partnership encouraged the minister to start drafting a consumer protection bill. The debate was launched again on a larger scale and included economic groups that were initially opposed to the project. During 4 years, the Association of consumers succeeded in informing the European Commission of the outcome of the debate. All concerned parties were called to seize every opportunity to modernize the laws and support private initiatives for consumer protection, in the shade of a mutilated Lebanese economy, controlled by communitarian quotas.
Zouhair Berro
President of Lebanon Consumers' Association
(Excerpts from Cahiers Euromed, 2005)
The consumer in Lebanon is not aware that he has rights in regard to the Products he is consuming. The lack of this awareness is that there do not exist laws that protect the consumer from bad quality products. Now the sad well known fact is that many bad quality products are sold to the middle east region (or what some like to call Third World Countries) because there is a minimal awareness and/or control on the quality of the consumer goods.
As long as all kinds of laws are broken and aggressors not punished on a daily basis in Lebanon, any consumer protection policy will have no value at all. In addition, the current minister of Economy and Trade has been calling the government for more than one year to recruit additional consumer protection officers since there is a severe shortage but unfortunately, there’s no ear to listen. This of course, will discourage any future help from the EU concerning this issue leading us to lose another priceless opportunity.
No Control means no consumer protection, the Lebanese authorities is always hidden from such important issues and therefore all types of restrictions will be broken by the vendors, suppliers, services providers… so the best important thing here is to ask why the Lebanese authorities is unavailable and how we can be supported from the EU in such issue?
I have visited Lebanon last month and, to my surprise, I could say that most of prices of goods are controlled except for Taxi drivers. Also to my surprise, I got back the taxes paid on goods purchased on departure at the airport.
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I would like to be brief and thank Europa Jaratona program for its achievments in Jordan.
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It is good to hear that there is someone who really cares about our historical monuments. While reading the article, I was hoping to find so many Tunisian names to make sure that, also, in our country there are people who are hell-bent on preserving what is left of a glorious history. Tunisia, thanks to its location, welcomed many civilizations whose leaders built huge and glorious buildings. Not only in cities near the shores, but also in the far west cities like Sbitla, Kasserin...
I believe that in order to save the surviving monuments, there should be a campaign to make Tunisians aware of the significance of such a loss if those buildings become ruins.
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I have read this article with cautious and i was not happy of the approaches being written due i guess to lack of real understanding of current environmental issues we are facing. The problem of pollution will not be tackled only through fundings bec most of the money used is not appropriately used and if ever used we seek the traditional methods the old fashion way. We need to look at alternatives , less costs , better and more sustainable output. Waste problems are derived from mass consumerism and lack of understanding of what our lives should mean to us as far as human values and choices we should take in life. Building waste water treatment is needed but what is more needed is eduation and awereness and return to ethics and values. We can keep dumping money on projects but who would assure me that our resources are being well taken care of and not depleted in a fast way? Where is the concept of sustainibility?
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The absence of consumer rights and laws in Lebanon make all consumers not protected against unfair, deceptive and fraudulent practices in the market which is considered as a law violation. Although that the minimum standard consumer rights consists on making available collecting consumers complaints, take them into consideration and make them available to law enforcement agencies across the country, this is not applied yet in Lebanon. The Lebanese people should exercise their rights to receive a free credit report, to refer to product warranties or stickers showing the energy costs of home appliances...taking advantage of law enforcement. But what would we say about the lack of politician's responsibility and efficiency in Lebanon????