HARARE City Council says on Tuesday it arrested a vendor in the central business district selling fake and repackaged groceries.
“Most of the groceries are expired.
“The repackaged groceries include milk packaged in South African branded containers, margarine in Buttercup margarine containers and ZimGold packages,” the local authority said on one of its social media handles.
“Residents are urged to exercise extreme caution when purchasing goods.
“They should only buy from reputable shops to avoid health complications caused by fake products that have flooded the market.”
The post on Facebook saw many people commenting, with some recommending the closure of tuckshops in downtown Harare, where “most of the stuff they are selling is fake, with one of the toothpaste brands sold there tasting like the mobola plum” (hacha).
Of late, there has been several complaints about the proliferation of substandard products in the capital, particularly at downtown tuckshops.
They are relatively cheaper compared to supermarkets, with many claiming that their goods are being smuggled into the country, hence do not pay the exorbitant duties paid by bigger shops such as OK, TM Pick n Pay, Spar and others.
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Besides customs duty, the big shops pay a number of taxes to regularise their businesses and face even more surtaxes which bump up the prices of products in those shops.
The tuckshop always get away with murder.
One can never find a product priced in ZiG, the prices there are exclusively in United States dollars.
Their revenue does not find its way into the formal banking system.
On the other hand, because the retailers import some of their products using foreign currency, their pricing in ZiG is out of this world.
The rise in the number of fake products is being blamed on dysfunctional control systems, which points to the authorities who must enforce these systems.
The laxity in systems has seen many consumers preferring to buy from downtown tuckshops that are a living hell for big supermarkets.
Not only are they complicating the lives of big retailers, they are also putting consumers’ health at risk.
In the case of the repackaged margarine that was being sold by the nabbed vendor, who knows under what conditions were they being sold, sanitary conditions, etc.
The government is broke and wants to boost its coffers.
How does it do that: Increases tax on groceries, hikes surtax, compliance fees, taxes its own people to death.
In fact, it has even gone to the extent of taxing fast-foods, betting winnings and imposed several other “sin” taxes.
This results in backdoor activities like some of these tuckshops, the nabbed vendor, illegal food outlets and many others.
It results in the flooding of the market with smuggled fake products, which is rampant on the market.
A country’s economy cannot be grown on sin taxes, surtaxes, compliance fees or exorbitant excise duties.
A country’s economy is developed through production in the country.
This is why Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion minister Mthuli Ncube must tell his boss that he must put more focus on recapitalising industry, reawakening sleeping giants and protecting the local brand.
That is the only way we can deal with cheap, fake products that have flooded the market.
