Food Industry Investment and Citizen Health (2) – Scenes and Evidence – ✍️ Absher Shajarabi
Due to the increase in spoiled goods…
Has consumer protection become an obsession that worries everyone!!!?
(economic report)
I mentioned in the previous article that a storage process that does not conform to specifications can result in deterioration of the stored material.
. In this article, we address the issue of consumer protection, which has been the subject of much controversy in recent years, especially after the war, the wide opening of markets in safe states, the importation of foreign products and the establishment of some food factories, in which goods and industrial production inputs may have been accumulated and expired, or were about to expire after a specific period from the date of their entry into Sudan.
This therefore threatens the health of citizens.
The National Authority for Standardization and Metrology has repeatedly announced at the state level the elimination of many spoiled and expired products. On the other hand, the markets witness every day the entry of goods in various forms, local and imported, at low prices compared to other products with the same specifications found elsewhere.
This has led those interested in economic and health issues to talk about stricter controls on state entries, domestic markets and local products to put an end to these phenomena that threaten the health of citizens.
A tour we made in some markets, and some traders preferred not to mention their names, revealed that these goods are bought by wholesalers at prices that the traders described as acceptable to the Sudanese buyer.
Other traders spoke more frankly about the fact that these products have a shelf life that can expire after a certain period if they remain in storage, so they are sold to small traders at these prices to avoid significant losses.
Some traders had another opinion that these products are not expired but their quality compared to other products is incomparable amidst this controversy among traders.
Economic and health stakeholders are calling for the necessary controls, particularly in new factories, to eliminate these problems, which they describe as dangerous.
A source working in quality control, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that the campaigns carried out by the competent authorities are not aimed at protecting the consumer and knowing the types of goods and their shelf life, but rather at paying and imposing, calling on these authorities to launch specific and specialized campaigns for factories and markets in coordination with the security authorities to inspect large warehouses and that these campaigns are general and simultaneously with the intensification of workers, and the authorities concerned with the ports must intensify surveillance and investigations.
On a related topic, some importers had a different opinion, as some of them stated: The procedures followed by the competent authorities to examine perishable goods that cannot withstand long storage periods contribute to increasing this type of goods available in the markets, as the goods sometimes remain for more than a month until it is clear, the requests of these parties to work to facilitate the procedures to contribute and reduce these phenomena for the benefit of the citizen
From the competent authorities, including the Customs Administration, which has repeatedly announced that it is working to reduce these phenomena by establishing strict controls on the entry of goods, this was even clearer as it was working to eliminate large quantities of expired goods to clarify its interest in this issue.
In the midst of all these procedures
The intersections had to activate the issue of social responsibility in the light of consumer protection, especially after this concept emerged as a means of effective and real partnership between social and official agencies and institutions.
I believe that the role of social responsibility in protecting citizens' rights is still weak due to the weak role of official institutions, the lack of coordination between the relevant institutions, the weakness of special legislation to protect rights, in addition to the distribution of legislation and laws among state institutions, the lack of logistical and financial support for organizations and parties concerned, and the spread of illiteracy among the largest segment of consumers of goods and services.
We will come back.
