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.