Vendors selling roller meal on the black-market are now
adding to their crimes by stealing some of the meal before selling underweight
packs.
Unsuspecting buyers are already paying around double the
subsidised $70 price for a 10kg bag, often having to pay US$4 in foreign
currency.
Informal traders use queuers to get stock when supplies
arrive at shops. And now buyers of roller meal find they are getting around
9kg, or even less in some cases, as vendors carefully open the bag and scoop
out a portion before selling the rest in the resealed bag.
In recent weeks efforts have been made to try and ensure
that roller meal is sold in local shops to households, but it is difficult to
exclude those who queue, sometimes after being tipped off by friends on the
shop staff, to buy bags for resale in the black market.
Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Permanent
Secretary Mr Nick Mangwana also expressed shock over the fraud.
“We wake up to a 10kg which is actually 9,1kg and a 5kg
that is actually 4,6kg. Is this daylight robbery or there is some viable
scientific explanation why mealie-meal spontaneously loses weight after being
packaged?” he said in a Tweet.
Another concerned Zimbabwean, Mr Gift Ndlovu, said the
repackaging fraud was also being done by informal vendors selling other
groceries such as rice, sugar and soya chunks.
“I used to buy rice, sugar and others kumikoto (on the
black market) thinking I was streetwise until I found out that their 5kg rice
or sugar is actually 3,5kg . . . I now buy straight from the shop.”
An investigation by The Herald has revealed that people are
being swindled on the street corners by vendors who are also defying the
national lockdown.
The Herald bought three bags of roller meal all labelled
10kg, two from vendors and one from a city supermarket, and weighed them on two
scales to ensure accuracy. The supermarket bag from Red Seal weighed exactly
10kg, as expected and as labelled.
The Herald weighed the three bags of roller meal using two
different scales confirming two of them were substandard.
A pack with the Grain Marketing Board’s Silo label was
bought on the roadside at Chigovanyika shopping centre in Chitungwiza; this one
weighed 9,4kg. Careful examination showed there had been tampering.
The other bag labelled “Sunny Roller Meal” weighed 9,6kg.
This time the tampering was harder to find, probably because a more skilled
swindler had stolen the 400g.
Swindlers go to the extent of faking their own packaging.
Some in Mbare print counterfeit labels and copy packaging so they can repack
the maize-meal in a genuine-looking bag after slitting the original bag and
stealing a portion.
Established shops not only have their own rules about
defrauding customers, but are also liable under the Trade Measures Act to
random inspection from staff of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce who have
the responsibility of ensuring that products on the market meet the stipulated
standards.
But inspectors do not have access to the informal market
and even tuckshops are not monitored although they have fixed premises. A
tuckshop owner near Lusaka Market in Highfield blamed the scam on poor
monitoring and erratic visits by the inspectorate.
“We do not see them here. We only heard of their existence
long back but I have never come across any,” said the tuckshop owner.
Industry and Commerce Minister Sekai Nzenza confirmed that
inspectors from the Trade Measures department were on the ground checking on
compliance with standards and quality of products, bringing their own scales to
check.
But she added that the police are responsible when it comes
to illegal vendors caught selling wares on the streets.
“We work closely with the Consumer Protection Council and
the Zimbabwe Republic Police in our operations,” said Minister Nzenza. Herald
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