AfricaPress-Tanzania: TANZANIA Bureau of Standards (TBS) has impounded three tonnes of imported expired goods and warned traders of dealing in outdated products.
The caution was issued at the weekend as inspectors from TBS and the police seized over 3 tonnes of substandard products, which included over 500 boxes of wines with labels showing the wine expired three years ago.
Despite being expired, the wines branded Mohan Wines from South Africa were still on the shelves.
TBS Food Safety Officer Donald Nkonyi told the ‘africa-press’ that the products were seized following spot check and market surveillance conducted at different outlets in the city.
“This shows importers of these wines were not careful in checking expiry dates of the products before shipments and as a safety watchdog we won’t hesitate to destroy them as soon as we find them in the market,” he said.
The 500 boxes of wines were part of the seized low standard products that included different types of cosmetics which have been regularly smuggled into the local market secretly.
Mr Nkonyi appealed to consumers to take note of important descriptions on consumables, particularly the expiry date and the language used on product labels.
He also warned consumers of different low standard alcoholic drinks and report to the authorities whenever they were in doubt on the safety of their consumables, otherwise they were going to risk their lives.
Recent findings show that cosmetics are part of the leading substandard products that are notoriously smuggled into the local market from countries like China via popular African hideouts like Senegal, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
