Special Report. Fake Waragi Floods the Country.

Special Report.
Fake Waragi Floods the Country.
 
 BY CAROL KASUJJA.
Ugandans are becoming craftier and niftier every other day. Some unscru¬pulous individuals are taking advantage of the colourless state of waragi (gin) by substituting it with water and selling to unsuspecting buyers. 

Information from the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) indicates that the men and women who want to make easy money have pounced on several popular spirit brands like Leading waragi, Ras, Afande, Arsenal, London and Beck¬ham gin, Coffee spirit, Zed pineapple and Tyson Waragi. Even one of Uganda’s most recognised premium brands — Uganda Waragi — has not been spared.

 “We carried out an operation and took different samples of waragi from different parts of the country and found out that conmen have started packing adulterated water in plastic bottles and supplying it to busy centres like Wandegeya, claiming it is alcohol.

They normally sell such alcohol at night near busy bars,” says Barbara Kamusiime, the UNBS spokesperson. One of the most affected brands is Leading Waragi. It is not clear why the authorities, including UNBS and the alcohol industry, have not come down hard on this illegal and dangerous trade.

 A consumer we talked to says his concern is not to be told that there are fake spirits on the market, but know that he is protected. The fake waragi is not limited to only the processed and packaged products but even the unprocessed.

 In 2010, contaminated waragi killed 30 people in Kabale district and left many others hospitalise and blind. We are working closely with Uganda Alcohol Industries Association, which monitors all alcohol manufacturing companies, to stamp out the vice.

We have also encouraged members who pack waragi to join that association so that it becomes easy for us to monitor them and identify those who operate without a license, so we can do away with counterfeits. Right now, there are so many brands on the market that are not licensed with UNBS,” says Ben Manyido, the UNBS executive director.

 He warns that anyone caught selling fake waragi will be charged in the courts of law.
 “We have received complaints about some unscrupulous individu¬als wanting to make quick money by counterfeiting our waragi, but we are calling upon the public to take note of our brand before consuming it. Ours is well packaged and labelled.

A consumer can easily tell even when the seal is tampered with,” says Rich¬ard Wabwire, the Uganda Breweries corporate relations director. Uganda Breweries are the distributors of Uganda Waragi.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR
•     Counterfeited waragi has fake labelling and tastes different. Conmen find a way of going around the UNBS logo.
•     Usually, there is no batch number.
•     If they indicate the manufacturing date, they do not indicate the expiry date.
•     The label colour of counterfeit ones never quite match the genuine ones.
•     It is not waragi it is some sort of concoction mixed with water. Some even buy methylated spirit and mix it with hot water; they never measure the quantities.
•   The contacts indicated are made up. If you call the number on the bottle, it is always off or does not exist on that particular telecommunication network.
•    They never indicate on the bottles where it is packaged.
•     Some of the wordings on the bottles are written in different fonts. For example, the genuine Leading Waragi has its  batch number on top, but the fake one has it at the bottom.
•    The word ‘Gin’ on the genuine Leading Waragi is in black, but the fake one has it in red.  Genuine Leading Waragi has two stars up, but the fake one has nothing.
•    On the seal, the fake one says security seal while the genuine one says ‘Leading’.