No quality control measures for food, alcoholic imports
Monday, 10 January 2011 10:58
BY JENNIFER DUBE
GOVERNMENT does not have a reliable monitoring mechanism to ensure that
imported food and alcoholic beverages items are safe for human consumption,
exposing consumers to harmful substances, officials admitted last week.
The shocking admission followed government’s ban on the importation of
chickens supplied by a South African company that has admitted selling
recycled chicken to major supermarkets.
Supreme Poultry was accused of treating chicken that had overstayed in
supermarket fridges with chlorine and injecting them with brine — water
saturated or nearly saturated with salt for use as a preservative — before
being repackaged and sold with a new expiry date.
Some of the chickens found their way to Zimbabwe to compensate for the
serious shortage of poultry products in the country.
Zimbabwe also imported poultry products from as far as South America.
The collapse of the local manufacturing and agricultural industries has
forced the country to import most of its food products.
Greedy retailers, aided by corrupt officials have taken advantage of the
country’s porous borders to smuggle food including genetically modified
(GMOs) products, which are illegal.
Investigations by The Standard revealed that most of the potatoes and
tomatoes sold at vegetable markets around Harare were smuggled from South
Africa, which allows its farmers to grow GMOs.
Counterfeit alcoholic spirits are also sold by some established retailers
with a major brewer claiming that the country was “swamped with imported and
non-compliant spirits, beers and coolers in the form of sachets and various
bottles similar to non-alcoholic drinks.”
Eve Gadzikwa, the Standards Association of Zimbabwe director general said
although her organisation was not a regulator, they were alarmed by the
influx of the uncontrolled imports.