Last Thursday, we gave you a snippet of the media sensitization tour hosted by the Belize Bureau of Standards. The professionals within this public office are trying to inform citizens about what exactly they do to protect you as consumers from predatory or inappropriate business practices, such as price gouging.
While consumer protection is the public stamp that they must carry every day, the Bureau of Standards is an organization that monitors standards through the use of sciences.
They invited the press into their Belmopan headquarters last week, and our news team has been perusing all the materials and information they provided. Daniel Ortiz has that story:
As a paying customer, if you should open a canned good, like this luncheon meat, and you find a portion of it rotting, you might try to return it to the corner store you purchased it from. If the owner accepts responsibility and gives you a refund or a replacement, then excellent... No harm, no foul, and retailer/consumer relationship will level up in rapport and friendly relations.
However, what if the storeowner refuses, even if you have proof of purchase? The first consumer protection organization you might be tempted to call is the Belize Bureau of Standards. In the heat of the moment, citizens want instant or near-instant gratification to know that a team of enforcement professionals has been immediately dispatched to investigate and take action on their behalf.
However, the uncomfortable truth is that the Bureau of Standards cannot react like a police Quick Response Team deploying to stop a crime in progress.
They do not have the resources needed to reach that level of enforcement, and citizens have to start tailoring their expectations in the short term.
Samantha Banner - Consumer Protection & Liaison Officer, BBS
"It wasn't up until 2008 when there was the establishment of a Consumer Protection Unit within the Bureau of Standards. And so, we do have a Consumer Protection Unit within the Bureau of Standards now, with the responsibility of safeguarding the interest of consumers. The unit currently has only 4 officers responsible for consumer protection within the country. 2 of the officers are primarily responsible for the dissemination of information as it relates to consumer protection and the different activities of the Bureau, and 2 who have the responsibility for the enforcement aspect, who is responsible for the market surveillance and the inspection activities."
This unit's deployment capabilities are nowhere near the size of its mandate, which is to protect hundreds of thousands of consumers who live all over the country's 8,867 square miles.
Rodolfo Gutierrez - Consumer Protection & Liaison Officer, BBS
"We only have 2 Kia vehicles that help us for the 8867, Mr. Daniel, 2 Kias for the coverage at least -."
Daniel Ortiz
"They are roughing you guys up, mein."
Rudolph Gutierrez
"They are some small cars that are very compact."
The Bureau's leadership is well aware of the deficiencies, and they are making the necessary campaigns to bolster their consumer protection capabilities.
Jose Trejo
"For us, the National Quality Policy is a game-changer in ensuring that a lot more investment goes into building the quality framework. But, I don't know if the framework of the lead institution, which is the Bureau, doesn't have the right resources to do it. So ideally, what it charts for us is the next step, and that next step cannot be with 3-4 persons. It has to be that it evolves and that the resources are there for it to carry and execute that mandate to develop the framework, to be stewards of the framework, and to be the gatekeepers of the framework. It cannot do it by itself. It will do it within that coordination and framework that we're talking about. But ideally, this is the next step, and with the policy going up to Cabinet, you best believe that the implementation now will chart how many resources we need to get it done. How do we close gaps?"
Also, the BBS is currently lobbying the government to pass specific legislation to expand and better define what consumer protection should look like in the future.
Samantha Banner
"Previous to 2010, we started working on consumer protection legislation. It was drafted based on the CARICOM model consumer protection bill, and currently, we still have that consumer protection legislation in a draft, which we haven't been able to have passed into law to help give the unit some legal mandate to help protect us as consumers. And so, we are working on developing a consumer protection policy, which we hope to present to the Cabinet once more to help us move this draft into actual legislation pretty soon."
In the meantime, the Bureau must rely on its other public and private sector partners to aid in the goal of consumer protection.
Samantha Banner
"We have the consumer protection hotline, which is 0800-283-5587. It's at the back of the pamphlet as well that you can call for assistance. So, for instance, we at the Bureau of Standards may not be able to do anything as it relates to you not receiving a proper receipt. But, we can take your complaint, and we can liaise with the Belize Tax Services to get you some form of redress. We may not be able to do anything with the expired goods, but we can receive your complaint, and we can liaise with the Public Health Department in the respective jurisdiction to ensure that the shop is being inspected and those products removed from the shelves. We may not be able to do anything with the price being above the controlled or regulated price, but we can liaise with the Supplies Control Unit. And that is the kind of network that we establish within the Consumer Protection Unit to help us safeguard the interests of consumers within our country."
Despite the massive gap in resources to truly police consumer protection, that's not the only responsibility they try to monitor with vigilance.
They are the keepers of standards that Belize adopts, and they calibrate scales and measuring instruments for all enterprises in the country. They even have laboratories and technicians who specialize in measurement science.
Rodolfo Gutierrez - Consumer Protection & Liaison Officer, BBS
"When we do gas stations, the volumetric provers are the ones we utilize to ensure that the gas pumps are verified and within that tolerance that Mr. Trejo may have mentioned. Then, we have the weight sets. The weight sets are utilized to do the commercial scales at shops. Again, those are weight sets with a reference standard to help us with that. We also have the mass standards that are utilized for large manufacturing facilities like CPBL and BSI, and these are what we need to take on-site to do verification to ensure that they are within the tolerance that is required. Industrial scales, we also - as mentioned early - verify scales at LPG depots and many plants to ensure that the scales that are being utilized to sell by mass are accurate."
David Guerra - Metrology Officer 1, BBS
"What the Bureau's role is, what we're trying to achieve here is to ensure that a kilogram measured in Belize is a kilogram measured anywhere in the world. So, when BSI weighs 10,000 tonnes of sugar and it arrives in Europe, it still weighs 10,000 tonnes."
Director Jose Trejo was also very candid about how Belize's implementation of standards has progressed over the years.
Jose Trejo - Director, BBS
"It's unfortunate that we are knee-jerked into putting in standards and regulations when something comes up. If it were the case that a thousand clients in this country complain that the meters are not reading well for their water meter, and if there is a flurry of those things, then it will trigger us to say, 'Well, are there any regulations? Are there any standards? Do we have the capabilities? We don't? We need it.' And that's how we get knee-jerked into putting in legislation and then thinking about, well, where are the capabilities to do that?"
The Bureau of Standards asserts that last week's press engagement is only the beginning of their strategy to demystify their work. They've committed to taking the press on ride-along encounters to see their enforcement procedures in real-time.
