FCC confiscates goods worth Sh19 billion in one year
What you need to know:
The exercise helped to save lives of hundreds of people who would have consumed or made use of the products if they were to make it into the market.
Dodoma. The Fair Competition Commission (FCC) confiscated fake and sub-standard goods worth a total of Sh18.67 billion during the entire 2016 calendar year, the Parliament has heard.
The exercise helped to save lives of hundreds of people who would have consumed or made use of the products if they were to make it into the market.
Speaking in Parliament this morning, the Deputy Minister for Water and Irrigation, Mr Isack Kamwelwe said the government was doing everything possible to ensure that counterfeit and substandard products do not find their way into the local market, especially this time around when Tanzania is actively sensitising local and foreign investors to set up industries in various sectors in the endeavor to industrialise the country.
Mr Kamwelwe was responding to a question from Ms Shally Raymond (Special Seats - CCM), who had wanted to know what the government was doing to control the influx of counterfeits in the country.
According to Mr Kamwelwe, Tanzania Bureau of Standard (TBS) has also confiscated goods worth Sh2.4 billion between July 2016 and March 2017.
The goods included substandard clothes, meat, sausages, lubricants, automotive batteries and solar appliances.
Similarly, TBS also confiscated a total of 84,000 substandard iron sheets, 200 cartons of spirits packed in sachets.
During the same time, about 200 cartons containing flags of different nations were returned to their original countries.
The government, he said, is working towards increasing the number of workers for FCC and TBS so as to enable them to conduct their duties diligently.
