6th November, 2012
The Consumer Protection Council, CPC, has uncovered irregularities in the packaging of some products in the country.
In a recent sampling of products belonging to nine undisclosed companies, the council said it discovered some shortfalls in the measures declared by the companies.
According to a statement by the council, the products of the nine companies sampled which included candles, sweets, tissue papers, milk products, some over-the-counter (OTC) drugs and wheat meal products, were found to have fallen short of their declared weights/measures while some have issues bordering on violation of the Nigeria Industrial Standards (NIS).
The examination carried out on the products of the nine companies showed that the short-falls in the declared measures of their products vary from 10 to 70 per cent, a development the Council found worrisome and referred to as high incidence of fraud.
CPC, in its further examination of the products, discovered that some of them had no shelf -life and manufacturing dates on them, while others did not have uniform shelf-life periods.
The inspection teams identified some of the causes of the shortfall as deliberate intent to short-change consumers, use of old technology and non-strict adherence to Nigerian Industrial Standards, among others, which the teams in their reports said have now been addressed.
The council said it has undertaken quality checks on factories of the manufacturers of the affected products with a view to nipping the problem in the bud.
While warning the affected manufacturers to desist from short-changing consumers, the council described the companies’ actions as an abuse of consumers’ right to adequate information, an infringement on the right of consumers to make informed choice and a denial of consumers’ right to have value for their hard-earned money.
—Henry Ojelu