Fake, poor quality crusaders march inland.

By Correspondent

Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS).

The Fair Competition Commission (FCC) has stepped on the shoes of its sister organization Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) in fighting the flourishing counterfeit and substandard consumer market with plans to establish two branches in the seaport of Tanga and the inland port of Mwanza in the next four months.

 

But unlike TBS, the nation’s quality monitoring institution that sets out to go beyond port authorities in Dar es salaam in controlling the inflow of substandard goods along the borders with the neighboring countries and in landlocked regions in the country, FCC will limit itself to control the flow of counterfeit commodities in Tanga and Arusha with a focus on consignments of electricity and auto-spares parts.

 

Taking a leaf from TBS, the commission’s Senior Communication and Public Relations Officer, Frank Mdimi said the move was just the beginning of a long-term plan to consolidate its activities across the country’s entry points in a plan whose details may be revealed later.

 

But he said they started with Tanga and Mwanza owing to their geographical strategy as gateways from the outside world and from the neighbouring countries respectively exacerbated by high concentration of business intermingling with outsiders. 

 

However he said the commission resorted to zonal offices following affirmation that the major port of Dar es Salaam with recorded 80 percent entry of all goods into the country, had nothing to be desired with regard security.

 

He said the fact that inspectors from the commission had been notably raiding public stores as of late in a regular basis and that his institution has set tight control at all Inland Container Deports (ICDs) at the Dar Es Salaam port, is a proof over how they mean  business in their going nationwide like their comrades-in-arms from TBS.

 

TBS had earlier announced it would open branches in Mwanza and Arusha before the financial year-end to later embark into launching branches in Dodoma, Mtwara and Mbeya, Rusumo border point with Rwanda, Mutukula, a border entry to Rwanda and  Kasumulo to block substandard commodities from Malawi.

 

However, Mndimi was skeptical over the war they wage on counterfeiters, saying a single-handed battle was likely to end up in fiasco.

 

“Unless the public is fully engaged in this war, we’ll never win,” he said, commending his commission for waging public awareness campaign on counterfeit products and applauding both local and foreign manufacturers for educating their suppliers on rules and regulations surrounding brands, who in turn educate the public over how to distinguish between genuine and fake products. 

 

He cited two major ways over how to make a distinction saying a fake commodity will either offer a guarantee warrant of less than six months or miss the safety use instructions and keep silent over the ingredients.