Indonesian consumers lack legal protection
Indonesian consumers lack legal protection
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian consumers do not have legal protection from abuses by producers, the Indonesian Consumers Foundation said.
Reviewing the outgoing 1995, the foundation named PT Telkom, the state telecommunications company, as this year's biggest violator of consumer rights.
The foundation said that of the 904 complaints it received during the year, 143 concerned the services supplied by Telkom, which has a virtual monopoly in domestic telecommunications.
Other major complaints concerned food and beverages, transportation services, advertising and raffles, electricity supply, housing, electronic goods, clean water supplies and banking and post office services, the foundation said in a statement.
According to the statement, which is signed by the foundation's chairperson, Zumrotin K. Susilo, there is a strong need for political and legal recognition to protect consumers in Indonesia.
The foundation proposed that Indonesia uphold the principles of a "people's economy", a system that sides more with the people.
It called for the enactment of a legislation to protect consumers and also for the establishment of a special government agency, on a directorate general level under the Ministry of Industry and Trade that would deal with consumer protection.
The foundation highlighted a number of areas where consumer rights are being violated, such as in the way the authorities set toll road fees for the benefit of the contractors, at the expense of consumers; the absence of legal protection for home buyers who are being duped into buying property that does not exist; and of students being deprived of their studies because of the conflict at the Satyawacana Christian University in Salatiga, Central Java.
Based on a survey it carried out in May, the foundation found that many imported food and beverage products sold in leading Jakarta supermarkets were not registered with the authorities.
Another survey, on cosmetics, established that many facial creams sold in Indonesia contained mercury substances, which are hazardous to health. (01)