Africa-Press – Mozambique. Cases of short weight in food products and cooking gas are on the rise in Maputo city, the National Institute for Standardisation and Quality (INNOQ) said this Wednesday in its report on inspection operations between April and August this year.
The findings of the metrology entity come at a time when rumours of short weight in staple products and being deceived by merchants are rife.
INNOQ director Geraldo Albasini told a press conference that, for example, a bag of potatoes and a cylinder of cooking gas could weigh as little as 8.9 and 8.3 kilograms, compared to their nominal 11 and 10 kilograms weight.
INOQ believes that this situation puts consumers at a disadvantage, and therefore has to stop.
“The weight reduction in products is notorious in the city and province of Maputo, since this is where there is the largest industrial park, but we also have similar cases in the city of Beira and some points in the northern region, where teams are working vigorously to reversing the current scenario,” Albasini said.
In its first, 2020, inspection phase, INNOQ did not impose fines, but issued warnings to those inclined to transgress norms.
“If we find the same situation again in a month or two, then yes, we will apply the fines. At this time, we worked more towards raising awareness and warning that situations should be corrected.”
In another development, Albasini said that the import of products whose labels are not in Portuguese persisted in the country, making it difficult to understand the instructions.
Albasini said that the government had, in the last two years, been working towards the labelling of containers of imported products including text in Portuguese, but admitted that the results were not yet satisfactory.
“Our appeal is for importers to demand products from suppliers whose instructions are also in Portuguese,” he stressed.
Likewise, INNOQ points out that fuel quantities can be as much as 190 millilitres short all over the country, citing the 26 cases raised in Nampula during the period under review.
During the period in question, INNOQ found 204 products from a sample of 1105 collected in the provinces of Maputo and Sofala underweight. In addition to potatoes and cooking gas, the list includes sugar, wheat flour, spaghetti pasta and rice, among others.
INNOQ inspection work resumes within one or two months, in what will be the second phase, corresponding to the year 2021.
By
Precidonio Silverio
