Erna Witoelar fights to protect consumers

Erna Witoelar fights to protect consumers

By Prapti Widinugraheni

JAKARTA (JP): The level of consumer protection is not the same
worldwide. While some consumers are very aware of their rights --
and are thus protected from defective products -- others are
helpless to a point where they remain unaware of their right to
complain about inferior products.

Consumers International, a federation of 220 consumer
organizations in 100 countries, was established to achieve two
goals: to support and strengthen the consumer movement and to
advocate consumer policies at an international level.

Erna Witoelar, the president of Consumers International (CI),
has chaired the federation since July, 1991.

During that time, Erna, who currently lives in Moscow with her
husband, Indonesian Ambassador to Russia Rachmat Witoelar, gained
a lot of insight on the consumer movement and on ideas of how to
increase the awareness of Indonesian consumers.

CI was founded in 1960 and was then called the International
Organization of Consumers Union (IOCU). It has a central office
in London, five regional operations and a global policy and
campaign unit.

Funding for CI is made by fees from member organizations,
foundations and government grants. Every three years it holds a
World Congress during which it debates current consumer issues
and elects a president and a globally balanced council. The
council, in turn, appoints an eight-member executive board.

Recently The Jakarta Post interviewed Erna at her home in
Moscow by fax and phone.

Q: What have you done as CI president in the past five years?

A: I have chaired policy meetings of the council and the
executive board which were held to direct the organization's
plan of action, allocate resources, develop memberships and
discuss new policies, as well as global and regional campaigns. I
have been traveling all over the world, when necessary, to
represent CI at international and regional meetings to strengthen
national consumer organizations through policy development,
government lobbying and media events. I have also visited central
and regional offices to give consultations on organizational
management.

Q: What do you consider as "milestones" during your period of
leadership at CI?

A: Some milestones include the setting up of our African regional
office and the facilitation of Africa's rapidly growing consumer
movement. We have also done similar work in Central and Eastern
Europe. In general, the growth of membership in the last five
years has been the fastest we've ever had in our history.

At an international level, after successfully campaigning for
the adoption of the 1985 Guidelines for Consumer Protection by
the United Nations, we managed in 1995 to get ECOSOC to adopt a
new resolution calling for the guidelines to be updated and
extended.

These guidelines have been one of the most important assets to
consumer organizations that seek to improve national consumer
protection legislation.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, we have been working
together with the Latin American Parliament to formulate a model
of the Consumers Protection Law for the region. Now 12 countries
in the region have consumer protection laws.

At an organizational level, we have managed to restructure our
global and regional operations, building the cohesiveness of very
diverse members' interests into a "one CI policy" through a
global management system.

Q: Do you feel that you and your colleagues at CI have achieved
your mission?

A: Yes, we feel we have achieved part of our mission, but of
course the challenges continue to grow and we still need to catch
up on some new expectations.

Personally, I have managed to survive the organization's most
difficult and challenging times, and I feel I have also achieved
my mission to unite the organization with its tremendous
diversity while keeping its integrity intact.

Q: What obstacles have there been in achieving your goals and how
have you coped with them?

A: The organization's main obstacle lies in the global area of
its operations and the "never enough" resources for ever-
increasing expectations.

We try to cope with them using improved telecommunication
technologies, strategic planning in the priority setting of our
programs and resources and sometimes the painful cutting of our
human and financial resources.

My personal obstacle is having to work in Moscow, away from my
own organization (YLKI, the Indonesian Consumers Protection
Agency) in Jakarta, so I have very limited staff and information
materials to work with.

I try to cope with this by keeping close contact with YLKI
while getting support systems from CI's central office in London.

Q: What is your view on the awareness of consumers' rights, both
globally and in Indonesia?

A: I think the awareness of consumers in general is increasing,
but so are new challenges, thus the handling of consumers'
problems is now more complicated than before.

For instance, with the globalization of trade and marketing
systems and the privatization of public utilities and other
services, a lot of consumers are lost in directing their
complaints. They sometimes are unaware about the line of
responsibility on the producer's or seller's side.

Another problem is the influx of "information pollution" which
currently overwhelms consumers. This causes confusion for even
the most aware consumer.

Q: How do you increase consumers' awareness, particularly among
Indonesians, and how would you compare their awareness with that
of consumers in other parts of the world?

A: It is no longer enough to leave the job of increasing the
awareness of Indonesian consumers -- which is relatively lower
than that of some neighboring countries -- to consumer
organizations alone.

The government and private sectors have a bigger
responsibility to do this because the creation of awareness must
now be done through mass communication systems.

More wary consumers, in general, are needed to create a good
economic system in a country. More critical consumers are a good
element to boost competitiveness in the production sector.

I strongly believe that one reason for the lack of
competitiveness of Indonesian products abroad is the lack of
consumer protection and critical awareness in our country. "Jago
kandang" (one that can only win on home turf) is the impression
made by the low performance of our exports abroad compared to
that of our neighbors.

Q: What is your view on the Consumers Protection Bill and why has
there been no progress so far? Do you have any concepts of your
own?

A: YLKI has been working on the bill for almost two decades now,
through several generations of parliament members and ministers,
through all political factions in the House of Representatives
and all relevant commissions with no progress.

We have been drafting and redrafting many concepts, and we had
to start again and again with every new generation of politicians
and every new minister.

In retrospect, I think that in the beginning the government
was unnecessarily afraid that a consumer protection law would
kill local industries.

Then, after there was a bit more confidence in our industries,
there came an era of deregulation, hence there was a reluctance
to create more regulations -- without realizing that we had never
had a good consumer protection regulation before.

After that, economic policies in that context became
illogical. Political and commercial interests merged even further
and higher costs were needed to push for a law, causing public
interest laws to be totally disregarded.

Q: What are your goals for the next five years?

A: For CI, the next five years will be directed toward
strengthening the global consumer movement by enhancing the role
of civil society at local, national and global levels. This will
empower consumers to protect themselves.

CI will continue to facilitate the growth of consumer
organizations in developing countries and in countries undergoing
structural adjustments and democratic reforms. We hope to reach
more low-income and uninformed consumers.

CI will enhance its global policy and campaigning in order to
influence governments into articulating consumers' interests, so
that every consumer is able to live in a just and fair society.

As for myself, frankly speaking, it is difficult to describe
my goals for the next five years. The end of this year will be
the end of my last term as CI president and the end of our four-
year stay in Moscow.

I will have a new chapter in my life and I still need to
decide what to do in the next phase. But whatever and wherever
I'll be, I will still be very committed to my goal of
strengthening civil society.