- Access Without Accountability: CUTS Report Exposes Ghana’s Consumer Protection Gap
Ghana’s economy has become more connected, more digital and more service-driven, but a new CUTS International Accra report suggests that the Ghanaian consumer has not become equally protected.
The report, titled The State of the Ghanaian Consumer Rights 2025: Insights into Awareness, Satisfaction, and Recommendations for Reform, presents a sobering picture of a marketplace where access to essential services has expanded, but accountability has not kept pace. It examines consumer experiences across eight sectors telecommunications, road safety, e-commerce, banking and financial services, electricity, water, waste management and aviation drawing on a quantitative survey of 1,795 consumers, focus group discussions and interviews.
The central message is clear: Ghana has made progress in bringing services closer to consumers, but too many citizens still do not know their rights, do not know where to complain, do not trust the complaint process, or do not believe regulators and service providers will act when those rights are violated.
That gap between access and protection is now becoming more than a consumer welfare problem. It is becoming an economic governance problem.
Consumer protection, properly understood, is not simply about refunds, apologies or call-centre complaints. It is about trust in markets. When consumers believe that their money, data, safety and dignity are protected, they transact more confidently. They buy more, save more, invest more, use digital services more and hold service providers accountable. But when they feel ignored, cheated or powerless, confidence weakens and markets become less efficient.
The CUTS report captures that tension in sharp detail. Its executive summary identifies frequent service disruptions, weak complaint resolution, low awareness of rights, limited knowledge of redress mechanisms, perceptions of weak enforcement, disparities between urban and rural service quality, and environmental and public health risks from poor waste management as recurring concerns across sectors.
The report’s timing is politically significant. In the foreword, Trade and Industry Minister Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare frames consumer protection as a pillar of socio-economic development and points to the government’s pledge to enact the stalled Consumer Protection Bill and Competition Bill into law. She says the findings provide a roadmap for shaping legislation that will improve awareness, raise service standards and create accessible pathways to redress.
This matters because Ghana’s consumer protection architecture remains fragmented. Instead of one comprehensive consumer protection law and a unified enforcement authority, the system is spread across multiple sector laws and regulators. The Bank of Ghana handles financial services. The National Communications Authority handles telecoms. The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission oversees public utilities. The Ghana Civil Aviation Authority handles aviation-related consumer issues. Other agencies cover standards, food, drugs, data and roads. The result is a patchwork system where responsibility exists, but ordinary consumers may not know where to go, how to complain or what outcome to expect.
The report is therefore not only a diagnosis of poor service delivery. It is also an indictment of fragmented regulation.
Telecommunications, perhaps the most visible sector in the study, shows the paradox clearly. Mobile phone ownership among respondents stood at 100.00%, confirming how deeply mobile connectivity has entered Ghanaian life. Yet widespread adoption has not eliminated consumer frustration. The survey found that 60.89% of respondents cited bad reception as a concern, 52.22% complained about slow internet, 43.79% cited credit loss, 37.00% mentioned low service quality and 27.63% pointed to call drops.
These are not minor inconveniences. In today’s Ghana, poor network quality can affect business payments, school work, media consumption, emergency communication, mobile banking, remote work and public service delivery. When a trader cannot complete a mobile money transaction, when a student cannot access learning material, or when a businessperson cannot send urgent information because of a weak network, consumer rights become economic rights.
The report notes that 42.15% of respondents had switched mobile network providers due to dissatisfaction. Among those who switched, 72.22% cited poor network coverage, 48.33% cited slow internet speeds, 43.89% cited high prices, 18.89% cited poor customer service and 13.33% cited frequent call drops.
The switching data tells a deeper story. Consumers are not passive. They try to exercise choice when dissatisfied. But choice works only when alternatives are available. In parts of Ghana where one network dominates coverage, switching is more theoretical than practical. A consumer may dislike the price or quality of service, but if only one provider works in the area, market competition becomes weak protection.
The report’s telecom findings also connect directly with the wider national debate over digital inclusion. Consumers may be online, but many are not empowered. High data costs, unstable service, unexplained charges, poor customer care and weak enforcement can turn digital inclusion into digital dependency.
The banking sector presents a different but equally important problem. The report notes that banks hold more than 85.00% of total assets in Ghana’s financial system and that 23 banks are licensed by the Bank of Ghana. Yet despite that formal regulatory structure, financial consumers continue to report concerns over charges, ATM reliability, loan terms, unauthorised debits and poor complaint handling.
The survey found that 76.08% of respondents use ATM cards, but 61.24% face ATM reliability issues “occasionally” and 3.35% face them “frequently”. When their bank’s ATM is down, 43.06% use another bank’s ATM, often incurring additional charges, while 28.23% try again later.
This is a simple but revealing consumer problem. A customer pays for access to banking services. The bank’s ATM fails. The customer then uses another bank’s ATM and pays extra. The consumer bears the cost of a service failure they did not create.
More troubling is the redress gap. The report found that 55.98% of respondents were unaware of available redress mechanisms for banking concerns, while only 22.01% had ever reported an issue to the regulator. Even though 52.15% of respondents said they were satisfied with banking services and 4.31% were very satisfied, a large 40.19% remained neutral, suggesting many consumers are neither angry enough to leave nor satisfied enough to trust the system fully.
The banking findings should concern regulators because financial inclusion without consumer protection can deepen vulnerability. Bringing people into the banking system is useful, but if consumers do not understand charges, loan terms, dispute resolution or their rights against unauthorised transactions, formal finance can still feel extractive.
Road safety is another area where the report properly treats consumers not only as buyers of goods, but users of public services. In public transportation, respondents identified reckless driving at 76.69%, overloading of vehicles at 72.97%, poor vehicle conditions at 71.62% and overcharging at 60.14% as common issues. The report also found that 53.38% of respondents had witnessed or been involved in a road accident, while 63.92% of those said emergency response services such as ambulances and police were not prompt.
This reframes road safety as a consumer rights issue. A passenger who pays a fare is entitled not only to transportation, but to reasonable safety, fair treatment and protection from reckless conduct. Yet many passengers feel unable to challenge drivers, mates or transport operators, especially when public transport options are limited.
Electricity and water, two essential utilities, show the daily cost of unreliable services. In the electricity sector, 68.36% of respondents said power supply had not improved over the years, 18.55% said it had improved and 13.09% said it had worsened. Respondents cited regular and unannounced power cuts, slow response to issues, expensive and increasing tariffs, low voltage and poor relations between ECG workers and customers as major concerns.
In the water sector, satisfaction was even weaker. Only 27.39% of respondents said they were satisfied with water accessibility, while 50.43% were neutral. A significant 63.48% said water supply had not improved over the years, 15.65% said it had worsened and only 20.00% reported improvement. The report cites unannounced water cuts, pollution, high treatment costs, limited access to Ghana Water Company supply, inadequate infrastructure, irregular supply and poor water quality as key challenges.
These utility findings go to the heart of household welfare. When electricity is unreliable, small businesses lose revenue, households lose comfort and students lose study time. When water supply is erratic or unsafe, families spend more on alternatives, health risks rise and inequality deepens. In both sectors, the problem is not merely service failure. It is the weak ability of consumers to demand timely information, compensation, correction or accountability.
The e-commerce and aviation findings show that consumer protection challenges are also expanding into newer and more complex markets. In e-commerce, the report highlights trust and accessibility barriers, fraud risks, limited consumer awareness and weak dispute resolution as obstacles to growth. In aviation, consumers face flight delays, cancellations, inadequate communication, cumbersome compensation processes, hidden charges, poor customer service and limited awareness of passenger rights.
These sectors matter because they represent Ghana’s future marketplace. More transactions are moving online. More consumers are using digital platforms. More Ghanaians are travelling by air for business, education, health and family reasons. If consumer protection does not evolve with these sectors, digital and service-sector growth may be undermined by distrust.
Waste management completes the picture by showing how consumer protection overlaps with public health and environmental governance. The report identifies improper waste disposal, low access to recycling and collection points, dissatisfaction with waste services and weak local government performance as part of the broader consumer experience.
Taken together, the findings reveal a marketplace in which consumers are often present but not powerful. They pay for calls, data, transport, bank services, electricity, water, waste collection, online goods and air tickets. But when the service fails, they often lack information, bargaining power, complaint channels or confidence in enforcement.
The report’s recommendations are therefore practical and urgent. It calls for stronger consumer education through diverse channels, decentralised and streamlined complaints handling, stronger regulatory capacity and enforcement, infrastructure investments in underserved areas, public-private collaboration, technology-driven service improvement and periodic consumer experience surveys with transparent performance benchmarks.
The most important recommendation, however, is legislative. Ghana needs the long-delayed Consumer Protection Bill to move from promise to law. A comprehensive consumer protection framework would not replace sector regulators, but it could establish a clearer national standard for consumer rights, complaints, compensation, unfair practices, disclosure, enforcement and institutional coordination.
That is why this report should not be treated as another civil society publication to be launched, discussed and shelved. It is a warning that consumer frustration is becoming systemic. When consumers face poor service in telecoms, weak redress in banking, unsafe transport, unreliable electricity, erratic water, online fraud, flight delays and poor waste systems, the issue is no longer isolated sector failure. It is a national market governance failure.
Ghana’s economic transformation agenda will depend heavily on private investment, digital adoption, trade, services and consumer demand. But demand thrives where consumers trust the market. If people believe they can be overcharged, ignored, delayed, disconnected, misled or denied redress without consequence, confidence suffers.
The Ghanaian consumer does not need sympathy. The Ghanaian consumer needs enforceable rights.
The CUTS report makes that point forcefully. Access has improved. Awareness remains weak. Complaint systems remain frustrating. Enforcement is uneven. And the legal framework is still incomplete.
The next test is whether government will treat consumer protection as a serious economic reform not a soft social issue.
Until that happens, many Ghanaians will continue to pay for services they cannot fully trust, complain to systems that do not respond, and live in a marketplace where the consumer is present, but too often powerless.
