IN a bid to enhance consumer protection, promote fair trade practices and ensure standardisation of measurements, Zimbabwe’s Industry and Commerce Ministry has commenced a legislative review to effectively deal with the scourge of business malpractices.

Addressing stakeholders at the Launch of Uniform for Trade Measures and Handover of Vehicles, Industry and Commerce, Mangaliso Ndhlovu, said as part of the legislative review, the principles of the Legal Metrology Bill which is envisioned to modernise the Trade Measures Act were approved by Cabinet in July 2024, and stakeholder consultations on the Bill are scheduled to begin in September, with a thrust to submit the Bill for the Attorney General’s scrutiny by the end of the year.

“It is against this background that we are building momentum to ensure that the Trade Measures department becomes a centre of excellence with improved operational efficiency and effectiveness,” Minister Ndhlovu said.

As part of this drive, the Industry and Commerce Ministry launched a new set of regalia that will identify Trade Measures inspectors to enhance their visibility.

The ministry also commissioned a new fleet of vehicles to help ease inspectors’ movement and enhance the effectiveness of their operations.

“Let me hasten to add that we are now working on providing them with mobile laboratories, which will allow them to do work away from the fixed laboratory areas even in the remotest areas,” Ndhlovu said.

This comes as government has taken a decisive approach that seeks to eliminate, once and for all, the dishonest practices that are bent on disadvantaging the ordinary consumer.

In recent months, there has been an upsurge in the retail of basic commodities that are packaged fraudulently, with some being underweight and others with misleading labels.

This was confirmed by the president of Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers (CZR), Denford Mutashu who highlighted how unscrupulous businesspersons were shortchanging consumers and how the capacitation of the department will protect the consumers.

“If you walk into many small butchers in residential areas, they say it’s weighed as 5kgs, but sometimes it’s actually about 3kgs, because of lack of calibration and lack of ensuring that the scales are verified, that equipment must be verified.

“Therefore, we would like to applaud government and the Minister of Industry and Commerce for spearheading this particular initiative. We’ll be collaborating, working together with the ministry and government to ensure that customers are not shortchanged and that the issue for fake scales is addressed. We want it to be robust and we also encourage government to add more inspectors, because I don’t think 23 are enough, government can actually add more inspectors on the market so that it is actually country-wide across the 10 provinces,” said Mutashu.

Deputy Chief Secretary for Policy Analysis, Co-ordination, Devolution and Development Planning in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Mr Willard Manungo said with the shelf occupancy of locally manufactured goods being now around if not more 80%, it is critical that these goods be in the right quantities and right quality to ensure value for money for our citizenry, and also export markets, especially in view of African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

“Errant behaviour by some unprincipled businesspersons cannot go unchallenged and must be stopped before the practice becomes entrenched into our business practices and society.

“Consequently, deterrent penalties should be imposed against facilitating the selling of underweight products, use of misleading labels and illegal measuring instruments,” said Manungo.

He added that the commissioning of fleet and the uniforms strengthen the activities of the Trade Measures Department and are critical in ensuring that Zimbabwe’s product packaging and measurement systems are in sync with international standards.

“Resultantly, this enables our goods to seamlessly access the regional and international markets, especially with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in mind. In this regard, I urge all businesses to fully comply with all the legal stipulations that are enforced by the inspectors from the Trade Measures Department,” said Manungo.

The private sector appreciated the capacitation of the Trade Measures department with the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce president Mike Kamungeremu said the investment will also protect the private sector.

“There is no serious business operator or investor who would look to undertake unscrupulous activities. So serious business in our country is also affected by those that are opportunists and those that are unscrupulous in the means of their trade,” said Kamungeremu.

Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) president, Mucha Mkanganwi, applauded the ministry saying the matters, if not tackled, can start out as packaging issues, weight issues, but they are also insidious.

“Eventually, ingredients start to get shortcut and we could actually end up with loss of life. We celebrate this investment in fairness and equity and we look forward to supporting you in whichever way we can,” said Mkanganwi.

Beyond the commissioning, Minister Mangaliso said his ministry has invested in capacity building for Trade Measures, including the development of a comprehensive curriculum for a diploma qualification in legal metrology in collaboration with the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education.

The department has also recently appointed seven new inspectors and further arrangements are being made to increase the number of inspectors to at least ten per province from the current average of three per province to increase coverage to all corners of the country.

By Conrad Mwanawashe – Maricho Media