Boonzaaier in his abstract states… “Credit sales are a
common occurrence and originated before the Roman era. As time passed,
especially after the industrial revolution of the 19th century (which made
available consumer goods on a large scale), an increasing number of contracts
of purchase and sale were concluded in terms of which payment of the purchase
price would take place at a later date or over a period of time in the future.
It is an incontestable fact that some ‘purchases on credit’ constitute a risk.
Not only for the credit grantor, but even more so for the consumer.
.
It is common knowledge that the use of consumer credit
enables individuals to enjoy the services of consumer durable goods sooner than
they otherwise and in a period of inflation offers them a real prospect of
acquiring them more cheaply. Consumers in general are able to obtain a more
satisfying ‘basket’ of goods and services with the same income. Thus consumer
credit may be said to enhance consumer satisfaction. Furthermore some
individuals who lack the self-discipline to save up for the purchase of a
durable consumer good but are nevertheless unlikely to break their contract
with a creditor are able to buy a durable consumer good which might otherwise
never be theirs.
He then goes on to explore the rights of consumers, why
consumer protection is needed, and the right to privacy of consumers in
congruency to section 28, Article 13 of the Namibian Constitution and the
provisions of the Bill of rights.
At the end of the paper he makes the following
recommendations “…I concede that currently in Namibia there is no procedure in
place that regulates ITC, this makes it seem like the Transunion has no legal
standing in our law. It has, however, become necessary for Namibia to reform
their consumer legislation and consumer protection laws, and put in place as
the South Africans procedural guidelines to follow in instances of extreme
default where blacklisting would be justified, because if we should declare ITC
illegal, credit grantors would in actual fact have no remedy against a
defaulting consumer, and this would render an imbalance of rights.”
The Ministry of Finance has promised legislation on credit
bureaus and how they manage our data. Until such time, I have to strongly urge
the Minister, Bank of Namibia and Namfisa work out a solution to fix this
problem. Since 1999 a proposal has been made such a credit bureau would
actually fit well into our Cooperatives Act without much being done in
addition. This would make the cooperatives operations governed by a set of
by-laws, as well as ensure ownership by the business that share this
information with each other. Of course, this would also mean that Transunion
would only be allowed to own a maximum of 20% in the cooperative. A rather neat
way of getting Namibian ownership of a strategic resource (personal
information) without using black economic empowerment or other such tools.
In the meantime,
perhaps we can consider some kind of grandfather clause to allow their
operations to continue until a new law is in place.
There is another issue though that I wish to ponder:
In addition to providing credit reports to credit grantors,
they also supply potential employers and some of the high unemployment can be
put squarely on the shoulders of the credit bureau. After all no employer
wishes to employ a person listed on the “blacklist” so many qualified people
are now outside of possible employment. I argue that is, if not
unconstitutional, then against the labour law, as you may not discriminate on
grounds of the person’s economic status.
