You know what you will eat, so why do you pay much for a cheap product? Do consumers of Georgia have any rights?

Nino ArveladZe

Georgia facing attempt of reaching the European standards in almost all aspects, but sometimes the legislative base, or lack of it, call into question our European status.

The problem of deregulation in the whole package of economic reforms is one of the basic ones. It concerns what we, citizens of Georgia, will consume and what we send abroad. In order to come to know the particulars of the range of these issues and find the ways of overcoming the problems, last year “Sakartvelos Ekonomika” magazine and nongovernmental organization “The Institute of Free Economy and Business” carried out many months’ work at the law “On safety and quality of food products” as well as the problems related to standardization and metrology, certification and accreditation of laboratories existing in Georgia. A conference devoted to these issues was held last April and, as a result of it, a collection of recommendations “Problems of reformation of standardization, certification, metrology (as well as safety and quality of food products) (institutional problems and the ones that originated during normative reformation, the world experience and trends, as well as the ways of problem solving)” was published Tb. 2006. Experts indicated the shortcomings in the law “On safety and quality of food products” and demanded their correction with the purpose of avoiding misunderstandings in future. The fact that the law needs perfection is beyond doubt, but, for the time being, consumers’ rights are violated almost everywhere – at the markets, in the streets; in supermarkets we often buy goods having no labels in the Georgian language or the ones that are stored in improper conditions. A number of problems have remained unsolved and we just tried to put off many of them by means of legislative amendments. Let us see what amendments were introduced to Georgia’s law “On safety and quality of food products” and what the Ombudsman – Mr. Sozar Subar promises to the Georgian consumers.

Let us remain the UN General Assembly 1991 resolution on “Guidelines for protection of consumers’ interests” including eight basic principles related to consumers’ rights protect:
– The right to safety
– The right to information
– The right of choice
– The right to being listened
– The right to compensation
– The right to healthy environment
– The right to basic requirements
The developed countries of the world are guided by these eight principles.
Protection of consumers’ rights in Georgia is guaranteed by Article 30 of the Constitution of Georgia. Based on the Constitution, consumers’ rights are protected by the Civil Code and Georgia’s laws “On protection of consumers’ rights” and “On safety and quality of food products” as well as other normative acts. In spite of the existing legal base, a supervisory body in the sphere of products and services, which would be responsible for protection of consumers’ rights, has not been formed.
Who will take children’ s foodstuff business under control and why the Ministry of Agriculture’s control over safety of food products was adjourned till June 2008?
Which new legislative amendments that were implemented in January?
On 29 December 2006 the President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili signed the “Law on introduction of amendments and addenda to Georgia’s law “On Safety and quality of food products” that should come into effect after 15 days from the moment of its publication. The following amendments were introduced to the law:
Article 1: The following amendments and addenda should be introduced to Georgia’s law “On safety and quality of food products”:
1. Article 26, which determines the authority of the Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia in the sphere of safety and quality of food products, should be supplemented with subparagraph “T” having the following contents:
“T” Supervision and control over children’s foodstuff (including babies’ foodstuff) at all stages of production, in accordance with the requirements envisaged by the Georgian legislation.
2. Subparagraph “D” of Paragraph 2 of Article 27, in which we read that, according to the requirements envisaged by the Georgian legislation, supervision and control over all stages of production of children’s foodstuff (including babies foodstuff) is the authority of the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia in the sphere of food products’ safety, should be withdrawn.
3. In Paragraph 6 of Article 36, which concerns transitional provisions, we read that, within one year after coming into effect of this law, the Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia should provide for the following:
G) Elaboration and adoption of terms and rules for provision of hygienic conditions in supplying and selling of products in retail trade. There should be the following wording: till 1 June 2007 the Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia should provide for elaboration and adoption of terms and rules in supplying and selling of products in retail trade.
Paragraphs 8 and 10, according to which inculcation of research, hazard analysis and critical control points in high-risk production should be implemented from 1 January 2009, except for: a) initial production; b) as for peasant/farm/handicraft production – should be put off till 1 January 2010, while 9. Inculcation of research, hazard analysis and critical control points at all other food processing enterprises that is due to be implemented from 1 January 2010 – should be put off till 1 January 2011. 10. Inculcation of research, hazard analysis and critical control points systems at animal feed processing enterprises that is due to be implemented from 1 January 2011 – should be put off till 1 January 2012.
4. Article 36- 1st with the following contents should be added to the law:
Article 36 I
1. Article 22 (Inspection), Article 23 (General inspection principles) and Article 30 (Annual plan and report of the Service) of this law should come into effect from June the 1st 2008.
2. Till 15 February 2007 the Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia should elaborate and adopt the list of educational arrangements necessary for a corresponding training of authorized officials for the National Service of Food Products’ Safety, Veterinary and Plant Protection with indication of the dates of carrying out of these arrangements.
3. Till June 2008 the state control over safety of food products/animal feed is implemented in special cases, according to the order established by the Georgian government.
4. Paragraph 3 of this Article does not apply to the state control over animal diseases, which is determined by Georgia’s laws “On veterinary” and “On protection of plants against hazardous organisms”.
5. Till 1 February 2007 the Georgian government should determine the order of issuance of certificates concerning hygiene of food products and packing related to food products and provide for enabling of the mentioned system.
On January 25 Ombudsman Sozar Subar and an NGO “Union of the XXI Century” held a conference concerning consumers’ rights infringing, clearly facing that nothing has been done from this point of view over the period of one year and consumers’ interests are again violated the way it took place before the adoption of the law.
After all these following request is appearing– why did we adopt the law “On safety of food products” with such a hurry and agiotage, and why so much of our or donors’ money was spent on this matter if we were not ready? In general, what is the use of impracticable laws and senseless imitation of the West?
There is the same situation with the customer protection legislation, it is a very delicate and important subject. It is always in the centre of attention of the worlds’ leading countries and international organizations. The reform that started in this sphere two years ago was a failure. We have liquidated the outdated and archaic system, but have not inculcated a new one. However, food products, medicaments, household chemical goods or hygiene items, which have a direct effect on human health, require special attention. The public does not know what food we eat – what are the components and origin of products, what medicines and consumer goods we use; there are no inscriptions in the Georgian language and information on goods being sold. Correspondingly, these goods are sold at a much higher price than they should cost.
There is a complete mess in the sectors in which there is no free circulation and in the regulated sphere – gas, electric power, telephone communication. There is no responsibility to consumers, no guarantee of supply and permanent changing of prices, the structure of which could not be investigated even by Sherlock Holmes.
At the end of January representatives of nongovernmental organizations and public officials worried by these problems met with the Ombudsmen:
The Ombudsman, Mr. Sozar Subar negatively appraised the fact that the Georgian market is saturated with low-quality products and gave a promise to consumers that he would apply to the parliament with the purpose of protection of their interests. He stressed that often products are of good quality but their storage conditions are not observed, as a result of which the health of Georgian consumers is often jeopardized. The Ombudsman touched upon the problem of labels. He pointed out that each consumer has the right to exactly know a product’s components and its name, which is often impossible in view of absence of labels in the Georgian language.
The speech of a representative of “Union of the XXI Century” Paata Gachechiladze was more concrete. The project “Public consumer initiative in the South Caucasus for increasing of food products’ safety” is implemented with the support of the cooperation program in the South Caucasus of nongovernmental organization –“Eurasia Foundation” and the US Agency for International Development. Under this aegis, in November 2006 and January 2007, the organization carried out monitoring of the Georgian consumer market and there are few people that could be satisfied with its results. Paata Gachechiladze pointed out that in the country there is no corresponding structure carrying out a single policy aimed at protection of consumers’ rights, the result of which is to the fore. The issue is complicated by the fact that in Georgia the problem of consumer rights protection is attached to other issues and it is not considered as a priority. He also spoke about food additives. Food additives are natural compounds or chemical agents that are added to food products in small quantities with the purpose of improving nutritive value, appearance or extension of the shelf life. Some of them have contraindications that cause different diseases in a human organism or provoke the existing ones, so world scientific institutes carry out permanent studies in this direction. There a list of food additives that are potentially hazardous to human health and can provoke various diseases. Unfortunately, no works of this kind are implemented in Georgia and there is no corresponding laboratory in the country. For this reason examination of food products is impossible and marking of imported or locally produced products depends on sellers’ conscientiousness.
It was emphasized at the conference that the Georgian legislation does not regulate the issues related to the use of genetically modified organisms and their distribution on the market and, to all appearances, food products available on the Georgian market contain genetically modified ingredients. In view of absence of the corresponding legal base, there are no rights and obligations of the public in this sphere and, in spite of the elaborated projects, this issue is not considered in the Georgian parliament. A representative of the sectoral committee of the parliament – Mr. Jemal Manjgaladze said that one should not reject all novelties and that genetically modified products should not be presented only in negative light, but the Director General of National Agency for Standards, Technical Regulations and Metrology of Georgia – Mr. Nodar Khatiashvili presented official data at the conference, according to which genetically modified products are strictly limited in Europe, but if the use of additives is necessary, it should be indicated on the label (its concentration should not exceed 0.9%). The same situation is in Russia where initially the limit made up 5%, but later on it was changed and now it is equal to the European one – 0,9%, but in Georgia it is not even indicated on labels and no one requires that.
What is happening in Georgia now?
As it was mentioned above, the state regulatory body in the sphere of food products is the National Service of Food Products’ Safety, Veterinary and Plant Protection, though its activity on the consumer market is rather low. As a proof of that we present the results of the monitoring of the consumer market carried out by our organization in November (Supplement 1). If we compare the results of this year’s monitoring with the ones of 2004, we shall see a lamentable situation:
As it can be seen from the chart, the only improvement is observed in reduction of the number of violations related to sale conditions (from 87% to 60%), which is explained by the rise in the number of markets where sale conditions are more or less observed.
Labeling
According to Article 6 of Georgia’s law “On protection of consumers’ rights, “producer (seller) is obliged to give the necessary, true and complete information on the product to the consumer” (Paragraph 1) and “information should be given to consumers in the Georgian language” (Paragraph 2). It is enough to analyze the monitoring ’s results in order to demonstrate the situation on the Georgian consumer market.
In spite of the requirements of the Georgian law, the consumer market is saturated with products having no labels in the Georgian language. The most eye-catching fact is that, in comparison with 2004 (when the supervisory bodies were at least working somehow), the amount of products having no Georgian labels has increase by two times and more. Here it should be taken into account that monitoring concerned only food products. In the case of household appliances, construction materials, children’s toys, clothes and other goods overview the situation appears more disturbing. It is almost impossible to find information in the Georgian language on home appliances and other goods, which is necessary.
We have purchased a number of products, the kind of which was practically impossible to establish.
As far as food products’ labeling is concerned, according to Article 19 of Georgia’s law “On safety and quality of food products”, the Ministry of Agriculture should have elaborated a by-law normative act on labeling, which has not been done so far (though they do not worry about protection of the existing requirements either).
Food additives
Let us remind you that food additives are natural compounds or chemical agents that are added to food products in small quantities with the purpose of improving their nutritive value, appearance or extension of the shelf life. Along with these positive properties, some of them have contraindications that cause different diseases in a human organism or provoke the existing ones, so world scientific institutes carry out permanent studies in this direction. Many institutes have made a list of food additives that are potentially hazardous to human health and can provoke various diseases. The results of the study carried out by French research centre “NATIONAL CENTRE OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH (VILLEJUIF)” are given in Supplement 2.
It can be said that no works in this direction are carried out in Georgia. In spite of the fact that use of six food additives is prohibited in Georgia, it is impossible to find out whether a product contains them since there is no laboratory in the country. For instance, we have great doubts that prohibited food additive E924 – bromate is not used for obtaining of roasted bread.
Genetically modified products
Currently the Georgian legislation does not regulate the issues related to the use of genetically modified organisms and their distribution on the market. In view of the aforesaid, genetically modified crops and products are imported without any registration and control. A number of import of seed material to Georgia’s different regions is confirmed from both official and unofficial sources. Food products that are currently available on the Georgian market presumably contain genetically modified ingredients. In view of absence of the corresponding legal base, the rights and obligations of the public are not determined in this sphere.
Despite number of projects on transboundary transportation, use control and regulation of genetically modified organisms and products obtained out of them were elaborated, consideration of these projects has not taken place in the Georgian parliament so far.
In comparison with the experience of other countries, it is noteworthy that in Europe use of genetically modified products or additives is strictly limited (their presence must be indicated on the label and their content should not exceed 0.9%). Russia has also reached a similar amount (initially the limit made up 5%, but later on it was changed and now it is equal to the European one – 0,9%). In our country it is not even required that their presence should be indicated on the label.
Proceeding from all the aforementioned, it can be said that now our country’s consumer market represents a place for selling foreign or domestic low-quality, detrimental to health and often hazardous products, and there cannot be any talk about protection of citizens’ rights declared in the Constitution or other normative acts (Paragraph 2 of Article 30 of the constitution, Articles 336, 342-348 of Georgia’s Civil Code, law “On protection of consumers’ rights”, etc).
In spite of concreteness and extreme minuteness of the debates, Mr. Nikoloz Gugushvili, the head of the newly founded structure of the Ministry of Agriculture – the Department of Food Products’ Safety, does not agree with either the experts’ views and remarks or the analysis. He did not cite any opposite arguments related to the market’s condition, but he said that with the available resources a complete control over these issues is impossible, invited everyone to work with him in order to jointly solve the problems and subjected the discussion meeting to criticism. However, he did not explain how the governmental and nongovernmental structures should work together. The problems in this sphere are likely to remain for a long time provided international structures interfere with the process and the state carries out reorganization of the administration system.
Till then we can only count on our caution and fate.