Harare, (New Ziana)-Authorities in Zimbabwe on Tuesday destroyed four tons of confiscated goods as the blitz against counterfeit and smuggled commodities has been intensified, a senior Ministry of Industry and Commerce official has said.

Chief director for Commerce in the Ministry, Douglas Runyowa said this while presenting oral evidence before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Industry and Commerce.

He said the blitz has unearthed shocking malpractices in downtown Harare shops where several products are either fake, mislabeled and smuggled goods which are being sold to unsuspecting consumers.

“You will be aware that over the last quarter, going back to October, there has been intensified blitz against counterfeit goods, against smuggled goods, so much so that even this afternoon we are actually destroying about four tons of goods that were actually confiscated during that practice, to ensure that we remove them from the shelf space, because we cannot guarantee our people that they are actually consuming safe goods,” he said.

Runyowa urged the public to purchase food items from formal supermarkets to safeguard their health.

“Most of what we have seen in the informal goods is quite shocking, and in our awareness programs we are saying it might be cheap but it’s coming at an expense to your health, because we cannot guarantee what is not there,” he said.

“Our health authorities have not certified some of those goods safe and fit for human consumption, hence we really need to intensify our efforts through an all-stakeholder approach and its a fight that would also be needed for our Portfolio Committee to help us intensify, because really what is out there is quite scary.”

Runyowa told the legislators that a recent survey showed that 50 percent of goods sold in informal retail shops did not meet the required standard.

“I would like to, not to scare you, but to advise you that we recently carried out with the Standards Association of Zimbabwe where we went and bought products from the shelf and took them for testing and compared what was written in the results. 50 percent of the products did not comply.

“You hear of fake, you can actually see fake Vaseline, fake flour, fake rice, fake toothpaste, and this is an alarming rate, and we want to also join hands with you in this particular fight, which we have really intensified from our side as a Ministry.

“So we really need to support this initiative and ensure that we strengthen our quality infrastructure to protect our consumers,” he said.

New Ziana