TAKING CONSUMERS FOR A RIDE

THE joint operation undertaken by the Consumer Competition and Protection Commission (CCPC) and the Lusaka City Council (LCC) inspectors which saw them seize 220 packets of expired powdered milk from a named Lusaka company is commendable and should be encouraged. Reports of shops and businesses selling expired food stuffs have increasingly become rampant and this just goes to show that something needs to be done to protect consumers from potential food poisoning. This therefore means that more such joint operations are inevitable to protect innocent consumers, many of whom are in the habit of picking merchandise from shop shelves without checking the expiry dates. Expired foodstuffs in whatever form, drinks inclusive, are not safe as they are known to cause serious food poisoning and eventual death, especially where the victim does not quickly access proper medical treatment. Cases of people dying or falling sick because of food poisoning are on the rise in Zambia and it is incumbent upon the public to ensure they check the expiry dates when buying food, especially tinned products. It is therefore unthinkable that a company would want to go ahead to sell the expired powdered milk to unsuspecting consumers instead of just discarding the product. In other words, if CCPC and LCC inspectors had not swooped on the company, it would have gone ahead to sell the milk to the public despite knowing very well that the product had expired and was no longer fit for consumption. It would not be wrong to infer from the management of this company that it doesn’t have the interest of the Zambian consumers at heart, serve for making money. Whether people fell sick, died or not is irrelevant to them. But even more distressing is the fact that the company reportedly changed the expiry date from November 2017 to an updated date. Understandably, the named company even had the audacity to scrap off the original expiry date and replaced it with a fake one. This is not only morally wrong but illegal and deceitful on the part of the company. Such cold-hearted attitude or behaviour in business circles should not be tolerated. Right now, and it is our hope that the company will be severely punished if found wanting upon completion of the investigations into the matter. Hats off to the patriotic citizen who tipped off the council or the CCPC about the expired milk, otherwise, many unsuspecting consumers would have been subjected to consuming the expired milk. While we salute the CCPC and the council for their quick action, we urge them to take this matter seriously and see to it that appropriate action is taken against the company in question. In fact, this is a pointer that the LCC health department in collaboration with other stakeholders should go flat out to prevent such crookedness from happening behind closed doors in this country. Our worry now is that how many other companies are scrapping original expiry dates from food products they are trading in? Could this be a common practice among companies dealing in foodstuffs? Our guess is that the seizure of the milk is just a tip of the iceberg – other unscrupulous businesses could be participating in the same evil. It is time for the LCC health department, CCPC including the Zambia Bureau of Standards (ZABS) to up their game. We hope such joint inspections will continue, except next time around, it would be prudent to include the ZABS in such operations as they too are responsible for ensuring consumers are not subjected to inferior goods. Our advice is that these organisations should not wait for tip offs to act, but be proactive in their operations. In this way, they will save consumers from health risks posed by expired foods and substandard products.