DEVELOPMENT BULLETIN-PERU: Consumer Power Spreads its Wings

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Abraham Lama

LIMA, May 9 1998 (IPS) - Consumer organisations in Peru, tired of being let down by the official institutions which should protect them, have gone independent, proposing consumer boycotts on controverisal products and services.

“In Peru, the authorities can fine anyone infringing consumer rights, or those harmed can sue, but these procedures are not enough, we have to hit the offenders where it hurts – in the market,” said Wilfredo Ardito, of the non governmental Legal Defenc e Institute (IDELE).

However, if changes are really wanted, these boycotts must be mass movements against the offending company, something which demands a certain level of consciousness from the consumers, added Ardito.

“The commercial boycott is a good, legal form of action, because not everyone can attend a march, and these issues can’t just wait for the next elections to designate more responsive authorities,” he added.

For example, Ardito has suggested consumers refuse to buy pasta produced by a transnational company building an industrial plant opposite the most important ecological reserve in Lima, the Villa wetlands.

This company was given irregular authorisation by a municipality in Lima and is refusing to obey Metropolitan Council demands it move the plant to another site, delaying the process by subtle legal manoevreing.

Ardito said the boycott on this brand of pasta would be a decisive and rapid way of convincing the company it should move its plant. Surveys show nearly 90 percent of the population agree with him.

However, the first, and up until now, only mass consumer boycott was the “telephone strike” by the public in early April, although the organisers and the company supplying the service disagree about how effective this was.

The conflict was provoked by the Consumers and Users Association (ACYU) demand for the Telefonica company withdraw the additional one minute charge on each phone call imposed when the government stopped them from charging in three minute blocs.

According to ACYU, the strike was a success, with calls during the protest hour down 95 percent on the normal average, but Telefonica representatives said the strike had no real impact, as people “merely delayed their calls until later.”

Herly Llerena, ACYU leader, replied the strike showed that, despite extensive spending on advertising to improve the Telefonica image, there is a high level of dissatisfaction amongst users, which will allow the organisation to plan other, more effective , forms of boycott.

Telefonica, a Spanish funded company with a monopoly over the service in Lima, has refused to dialogue with ACYU leaders. Analysts claim the company wishes to avoid a repeat of its recent defeat at the hands of another users organisation.

In the last 12 months, neighbourhood and consumer groups have had some success with grass-roots campaigns and legal action.

In marginal areas, groups of neighbours campaigned against excessive tariffs, the inadequate installation of mains power lines and the non-fulfilment of contracts by the companies supplying electrical energy.

A series of neighbourhood organisations are organising a joint meeting opposite the court headquarters for June 5, in order to offer support to the court case against the two companies which sell electrical energy in Lima.

The local people of the poor neighbourhoods are demanding the two private companies which took over the State electricity concern pay back the refundable contributions they made to pay for the installation of the energy networks in their areas.

These installations were legally owned by the neighbours, but were wrongly included in the transferral of assets when the State electricity company was privatised.

The neighbours organisations hope their legal action will have a similar outcome to the verdict reached four months ago in favour of the Peruvian Consumers and Users Association (ASPEC), which forced Telefonica to pay back feesy charged twice for the cal l transferral service.

“The Company charged both the person making the call and the person receiving the transferred call. And it seemed they could not be forced to end the double charging and pay back that already paid, as they claimed this was how the service worked,” said Jaime Delgado, ASPEC president.

But in the publicity “it appeared only one charge was required, so we sued them for misleading advertising. They had to pay back what they had overcharged, cough up a fine and reprint 3.2 million leaflets telling users what the real charges were,” he a dded.

ASPEC has a one hour radio programme each day, “Defending the Consumer,” and offers legal aid to customers prepared to sue for their rights. Up until now it has received 3,500 complaints, of which 300 have been resolved.

Most of the complaints are related to public services; telephones, electricity and water in descending order. But there are also complaints against private companies which fail to complete contracts, charging fees which were not agreed, adding on unfores een interest or commissions.

“The companies individual complainants with disdain, because they trust their teams of expert lawyers can drag out the processes, tiring them out, but ASPEC can take on their defence and fight long battles in the name of several consumers together,” he said.

Another of the recent ASPEC legal victories stopped the concessionary at Lima Airport from charging on all vehicles entering the precinct. Now only those which remain more than 15 minutes have to pay a parking fee.

The ASPEC leader said his organisation does not want only to defend isolated cases, but is proposing the creation of arbiter consumer councils, like those of Spain, entities linked to the Judicial Power which can force companies into paying damages to cl ients in “quickie” court cases.