THE lady picked up her bag and left the office of a reputed foreign bank in frustration. The bank hierarchy had denied her a request of some certification she needed for her child’s school.

“I am not a problem client. I have been managing my financial obligations (supporting my son studying abroad) through this bank for quite sometime. The bank has full record of my dealings. Earlier on they signed the certification form without much ado. This year, however, they flatly refused,” Mrs Hyder, 48, told Dawn.

“With deadline for submission of certification approaching fast, I was forced to use my contacts to get the work done. I wonder what others do when pushed in a corner?” she asked criticising the system that, she felt, was loaded against the common citizen.

“People deserve a better deal but it could only be realised through effective monitoring by an equipped regulator that ensures a functional system to redress complaints swiftly,” Khalid Mirza, who currently teaches at Lahore University of Management Sciences commented when reached over phone.

Mirza, a fearless perfectionist who revitalised the SECP in early 2000 and made the Competition Commission of Pakistan a model regulator in the closing years of the last decade, stressed the need for efficient regulators to check market abuses and to strike a fine balance between suppliers and consumers of goods and services. This, he said, is crucial to allow progress and development in a free market economy.

Despite weak macroeconomic data, many indicators suggest major expansion in the country’s consumer base over the last three decades. This is also evident from a strong presence of multinational companies, dealing in fast moving consumer goods, automobile makers, drug firms, fertiliser and cell phone companies, banks, retail chains, etc., in the domestic consumer market.

However, in the absence of apt public policy response, the bargaining position of consumers has weakened because of ineffective regulating framework and institutions in the market place. Consumers continue to be at the receiving end.

The unilateral fixation of arbitrary prices, existence of multiple rates for the same commodity in different outlets and localities and other unethical practices are rampant. The market is manipulated.

Some consumer platforms were created and the agenda of consumer rights grabbed some attention in the middle of last decade under Musharraf/Shaukat Aziz government. The agenda was encouraged by the development partners and multilateral lenders with conditional support on tangible steps towards creating a level playing field for both, producers and consumers.

Consumer protection legislations were introduced in the Punjab, KP and Balochistan assemblies. In Sindh, however, the bill was ready, but for reasons not known , could not be tabled before the provincial assembly.

“Under the democratic government the consumer rights movement has not made much headway. For all practical purposes, it is rather paralysed. Even Punjab which had set up consumer courts in 11 districts six years back, regressed. The expansion of consumer courts network has stopped and the established ones have become dysfunctional,” Asif Awan, a consumer right activist told this writer.

What stopped the ruling PPP and MQM, the latter enjoying vast support in urban Sindh and projecting itself as a representative of the middle class, from legislating to provide the needed cover to several million consumers was hard to explain.

In 2007 Dr Farooq Sattar, a key MQM leader stated that enactment of the said law was on the cards as the draft bill was ready.

None of the leaders of provincial assembly were available for formal comments. Informally some provincial assembly members admitted they had no clue as the issue was never discussed in their presence in the assembly.

“Nisar Khuhro assured us of his support recently at a function of Consumer Association of Pakistan for passage of the Consumer Protection Act in Sindh at the earliest,” Kawkab Iqbal who heads an NGO informed Dawn.

The consumer protection law regulates relationship between individual consumer and businesses. It covers a wide range of topics including but not limited to product liability, privacy, unfair business practices, fraud, misrepresentation and other consumer/business interactions. For example, the State Bank requires banks not to charge deposit holders for services without informing them in advance.

“A weak regulatory framework, lack of enforcement, (ineffective monitoring) transparency and disclosure and non-adherence to corporate best practices have created a market bias in favour of suppliers and traders with consumers bargaining from a disadvantageous position,” an analyst commented.

Some experts suggested that a federal law could provide uniform protection to all citizens against unethical business practices, when they enter market as consumers. Others, however, felt otherwise.

“A flexible and decentralised regulatory framework allows institutions to operate more effectively and respond better to the citizen’s needs. Weak or poorly functioning regulatory frameworks and institutions are unable to serve the mandated objective,” said an expert.