Activists launch campaign against counterfeit products

Mar 26, 2018

Last year, 232 metric tonnes of counterfeit goods worth sh1.7b were seized by UNBS

As fake products continue making their way into the Ugandan market, the Anti-Counterfeit (ACN) Network has started a sensitisation campaign to educate people on counterfeit products.

While addressing a conference on the withdrawal of the Anti-Counterfeit Bill 2015 from parliament by the government, Fred Muwema, the executive director of the Anti-counterfeit Network said the country had failed to deal with the problem of counterfeits.

"Combating counterfeits requires legislation and enforcement, technology and communication strategies. We are going to have different platforms on which we will sensitise the populace," Muwema said.

Godwin Bonge Muhwezi, the public relations officer at Uganda National Bureau of Standards( UNBS)said the government should increase funding and manpower to fight the importation of counterfeit products.

Last year, 232 metric tonnes of counterfeit goods worth sh1.7b were seized by UNBS, while 48 Metric tonnes of substandard goods worth about 950 million were destroyed between July and December 2017.

The destroyed products included cosmetics containing hydroquinone, assorted food stuffs, cement, iron sheets, electrical products (extension cables, electrical cables, bulbs etc.), mattresses, weighing scales, paints, diapers, sanitary towels, baby powdered milk, toilet paper, among others.

The goods seized included steel bars, iron sheets, assorted food stuffs, energy savers, extension cables, cosmetics, agro-inputs, sweets, cooking oil, second hand tyres, beers, paint, and maize flour.

"We have so many substandard goods on the market for three major reasons: we have many traders that have failed to comply with pre-export verification conformity check from the service points from countries of origin, while others are smuggled in through our porous borders and the lack of funds to enforce the law," he noted.

Samuel Kuloba Watasa of the Uganda Consumer's protection Association said Ugandans have chosen to be ignorant making it hard to fight counterfeit products.

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