A leading policy think tank, CUTS International Accra, has raised serious concerns about Ghana’s prolonged delay in passing a Consumer Protection Law and a Competition Law.
The call was made at the launch of the book ‘Consumer Rights and Justice in Ghana: A Legal Compass’, authored by Francisca Kusi Appiah, Vice Dean of the UPSA Law Faculty.
The event took place on the eve of World Competition Day. World Competition Day is observed on December 5 to mark the adoption of the United Nations Set of Rules on Restrictive Business Practices in 1980. The ceremony was chaired by Professor Justice Samuel Kofi Date-Bah, who wrote the foreword to the book.
Speaking on the sidelines of the launch, the Director for the West Africa Regional Centre for CUTS International, Appiah Kusi Adomako, stated that the delay in passing the two laws has become a matter of concern for consumers, businesses, and the investor community.
According to him, Ghana needs a unified law to protect consumers and a competition law to regulate market conduct. He argued that the absence of these laws has created a legal vacuum.
He said, “The country has waited long enough. The prolonged delay no longer serves the public interest. Consumers are unprotected. Markets operate without discipline.”
He explained that the continued delay weakens public trust and leaves citizens exposed in their daily transactions.
He stressed that without a strong consumer protection framework, rights of consumers are violated across sectors.
He listed key rights that are not upheld in the Ghanaian marketplace. These rights include the right to safety, the right to information, the right to choose, the right to be heard, the right to redress, the right to consumer education, and the right to fair value.
He referenced a recent CUTS study which documented price exploitation, misleading information, substandard goods, and weak redress systems in essential service sectors. “A mother buying food products should trust labels. A patient visiting a clinic should feel safe. A mobile money user should not beg for a reversal when systems fail. Rights must work in practice and not remain theoretical.”
Mr. Adomako also spoke about the need for competition law to guide market behaviour.
He said the Ghanaian market has become vulnerable to anti-competitive conduct. He pointed to price fixing, output control, collusive arrangements, and abuse of dominance.
He argued that some trade associations have moved beyond advocacy into price coordination. He described such conduct as harmful to both competition and consumers. “When associations set prices, competition dies. When dominant firms dictate terms, small businesses shrink. When competitors fix quantities, the market suffers. We need rules and we need enforcement.”
He noted that Ghana has no general law criminalising cartels apart from the downstream petroleum sector under Section 44 (3) of the National Petroleum Authority Act 2005, Act 691.
He stated that this gap allows anti-competitive conduct to continue without deterrence.
He argued that competition regulation is necessary to protect innovation, entry, fair pricing, and equal opportunity for firms.
He added that mergers and acquisitions in the retail and pay TV markets risk creating dominant groups without oversight.
He stated that a merger control framework would prevent excessive market power and protect smaller players. “We need competitive markets for fairness. We need rules to address market power and other restrictive trade practices. Ghana must not wait for a crisis to act.”
Article 12 (3) of the AfCFTA Protocol on Competition mandates “State Parties without competition law and enforcement bodies shall enact competition laws and establish competition enforcement bodies upon entry into force of this Protocol or their accession to the AfCFTA Agreement.” He said Ghana cannot be an effective player in the single African market without aligning with these standards.
The remarks mirror the central argument of the book.
In presenting the book review during the launch of the book, Mr. Adomako lamented the fragmented structure of consumer protection laws in Ghana. The text reviews 50 years of legal development. It shows that consumer laws and regulations are scattered across multiple statutes and regulations.
It notes that agencies such as GSA, FDA, NPA, BOG, PURC, and NCA protect consumers only within their sector mandates. The book shows how fragmentation weakens enforcement and creates confusion for citizens seeking redress.
The author provides legal history referencing cases like Donoghue v Stevenson and Morkor v Kuma to illustrate the evolution of the duty of care. The work explains who qualifies as a consumer, what rights exist, and how enforcement currently operates.
The book offers detailed sector analysis. It covers goods, food, pharmaceuticals, utilities, waste, housing, telecom, finance, insurance, health, transport, tourism, and e-commerce. It highlights defective goods, false labels, expired products, power billing disputes, data privacy breaches, ATM reversal failures, and difficulty in recovering funds after service failure. It stresses real day-to-day problems.
Mr. Adomako described the book as a milestone, saying the text fills a major gap. He added that it provides a blueprint for reform.
He encouraged policymakers, business leaders, regulators, civil society, and academic institutions to read the book, calling for urgent revision and passage of the Consumer Protection Bill and a Competition Law.
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