All imported goods must be thoroughly inspected

EDITOR — Government should be encouraged to carefully inspect and examine the standard of all imported products to ensure their safety before they reach their final consumers.

The Namibian newspaper online version recently revealed that N$20 million worth of counterfeit alcohol which was shipped from the United States of America (USA) through Dubai and Namibia enroute to Zimbabwe was recently destroyed at Walvis Bay.

According to the article, a consignment carrying 95 000 bottles of fake Johny Walker, Black Label and Smirnoff Vodka was detained in Namibia where the alcohol was thoroughly screened and the results indicated that it contained potentially dangerous chemicals.

Firstly, Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) should ensure that all products, especially those that pose a significant public health threat are inspected at all the country’s ports of entry.

If the goods are not safe for human consumption, they should be banned from entering the country to save lives.

Following Government’s introduction of Statutory Instrument 64 (SI64) of 2016, which was promulgated to restrict importation of some products that have local equivalents in a bid to protect the local industry, some cross border traders had been illegally smuggling some of the banned commodities.

Zimra should continue ensuring that all loopholes on smuggling are plugged to avoid entry of harmful goods into the country.

Normally, substandard products are brought in the country through these unofficial means.

In order to protect public health and prevent food borne diseases, the Standard Association of Zimbabwe, (SAZ), should focus more on preventing food safety problems rather than reacting to problems after they have occurred.

Thus, SAZ should implement a series of preventive control measures to enhance the safety control system for both domestic and imported products.

For instance, there are a number of local bottle stores that sell alcohol which is known to be unsafe for human consumption.

Some bottle stores in Harare sell alcohol which is believed to be harmful for humans.

Some unlicensed people also sell these types of alcohol at their homes which they have turned into shebeens.

It is sad that most people who sell such types of alcohol are only after money, overlooking the health issues.

On the other hand, the United States of America (USA), where the consignment destroyed in Namibia was coming from should be questioned on their agenda of manufacturing such substandard and harmful alcohol.

People are certainly wondering why such alcohol was being shipped to Africa, and Zimbabwe in particular.

The alcohol consignment exposed the USA’s plan of destroying Zimbabwe and its hard working people.

One cannot imagine the number of people that were going to be affected after consuming such alcohol and the health consequences that it was going to cause had it not been destroyed at Walvis Bay.

It is through such incidents that people will applaud Government policies such as Buy Zimbabwe policy.

Buying local products has an advantage that the products would have been manufactured here and certified by the SAZ before being sold.

Chido Chikuni