Posts

Consumer Rights Day 15 March 2014

(First appeared in Consumer News Namibia Magazine March 2013) World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD) was established on 15 March 1983 to promote consumer rights around the world. For WCRD in 2014, consumer organisations around the world are highlighting the consumer issues that are undermining and frustrating the success of mobile phone services. The international consumer body, Consumers International (CI) will be launching a new Consumer Agenda for Fair Mobile Services. The agenda sets out the issues that most effect consumers including the need for access to a reliable service, the security of their data and fair contracts and billing. CI will submit the Agenda to the World Telecommunications Development Conference, held by the International Telecommunications Union, where they will be calling on phone regulators and companies to take action to stop these issues undermining the success of this new technology. Consumer Agenda for Fair Mobile Services addresses the issues tha...

Service culture in Namibia

(First appeared in Consumer News Namibia Magazine March 2013) I have been plagued in the past few weeks with the bad level of service I received from companies around Namibia. It has gone from a restaurant which brought the starters (oysters) twenty minutes after the main course had arrived, (the main course was a medium-done steak and should have taken much longer than shelling oysters), to a telephone call to a bank to request their latest home loan rates and I was informed that the person dealing with that type of enquiry is not answering their phone. This led me to look again at what service is, and more importantly how do we go about creating a “service culture” in the country. Allow me to first define the words Service and Culture. For me the word SERVICE is “performing work for someone else”. Culture is defined as the “total inherited ideas, beliefs, values, and knowledge, which constitute the shared bases of social action.” Looking at these meanings we look a...

Read Before You Buy

(First appeared in Consumer News Namibia Magazine January 2013) When was the last time you read the product description or spent time understanding the labeling of a product you have purchased? How many times have you accepted that the product meets your needs without actually understanding what the product is composed of? Unless you have a specific allergy or irritation that is caused by a product, most of us would purchase without taking time to look at the specific ingredients of the product. Recently, I was advised to take an energy supplement as I am working up till 10 hours a day, seven days a week. A friend gave me an energy supplement of Bioplus and swore that this would “energise” me and provide that needed boost. (It should be noted that the Bioplus sachets can be bought at most supermarkets, small shop or even a service station shop and are displayed quite prominently.) After about two weeks of taking these energisers on an almost daily basis, I went on Christmas lea...

Not just food security – but also food safety

(First appeared in Consumer News Namibia Magazine January 2013) Namibia is facing one of the worst droughts in the past three decades.  The Office of the Prime Minister, in March 2013, budgeted to assist about 331 000 people in communal areas that are classified as food insecure. In the meantime that amount has ballooned to almost 560 000 by December of the same year. The areas affected by the drought were mainly communal (rural) areas and resettled farms. Through the Office of the Prime Minister’s relief programme the government has distributed maize, beans, tinned fish as well as game meat. During this period, most of the development partners have focused on poverty or food security, but very few have emphasized the need for food safety. Consumer organisations (in Namibia and abroad), also emphasize food safety when discussing food security, as this is the assurance that eating something will not damage your health .  This is an absolutely fundamental requirement, a...

E-Justice - Changes proposed to laws on High Courts in Namibia

(First appeared in Consumer News Namibia Magazine October 2013) Proposed amendments to the High Court Act that have been tabled in the National Assembly should pave the way for the introduction of a new electronic documents filing system in the High Court. The High Court Amendment Bill, which was motivated by the Minister of Justice, Utoni Nujoma, contains several proposed changes to the High Court Act of 1990 that would also give the Judge President of the High Court wider powers to make rules that would determine the way the court functions. The main change highlighted in Parliament was that the provisions tabled would enable the Judge President to make rules that require legal documents to be filed with the court. The object of introducing the electronic court filing system, commonly referred to as e-justice, is to eliminate as far as possible the filing of court documents in hard copy. With the introduction of e-justice the aim is to achieve the quick and fair disposal of ...