Municipalities need to be held accountable

How can Companies be subject to the Consumer Protection Act, but not the government? Recently the government of our country did what governments are supposed to do; protect its people. The government realised that many consumers were being abused and taken advantage of by companies and so they introduced the Consumer Protection Act. This Act is revolutionary worldwide and is the most advanced form of protection for the consumer from unscrupulous service providers. There is a catch here: the government, particularly municipalities, are not subject to the provisions made in the Act. This is completely ridiculous. The government, through the municipalities, is the biggest provider of services in the country. Add to that, it has one of the poorest records of service delivery for any organisation or company in the country. One of the main provisions of the Act is that the consumer does not have to pay for services that have not been provided, or poorly provided. How can it possibly be that municipalities are exempt from this? In court today this hypocrisy is being challenged by AfriForum and we are very fortunate as a country to have institutions such as this group who are prepared to fight the battles for the ‘small guy’ who sometimes are not even aware of the discrepancies in our law. For me, it makes no sense for municipalities to be exempt and I trust that the courts see the same.