By HELEN ZULU –
THE Zambia Bureau of Standards (ZABS) has started conducting spot checks and market surveillances to check compliance levels on regulated products.
ZABS head of marketing and public relations Hazel Zulu said the bureau in collaboration with Lusaka City Council (LCC), Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) and the Ministry of Health (MoH) conducted joint spot check inspections on some shopping malls in Lusaka to assess compliance levels on regulated products.
Ms Zulu said ZABS was happy that the spot check inspections conducted so far revealed that most shops visited were complying to set standards and the compliance levels were good.
She said this in a statement released in Lusaka yesterday.
“We have intensified spot checks especially during this peak period in order to ensure that consumers are protected from substandard products.
“We believe that working in collaboration with other government agencies such as LCC, CCPC and the MoH will make our operations even more effective as our different legislations will complement each other and our combined workforce will increase which will enable us to cover even more areas,” Ms Zulu said.
She said the shops visited included, Pick n Pay at Levy Business Park and Makeni Shopping Malls, Shoprite at Cosmopolitan Mall and Spar in Chawama.
Others were Food Lovers at both Levy Business Park and Makeni Shopping Malls.
Ms Zulu said the Inspectors were checking for expiry dates, product packaging and labelling, dates of manufacture and presence of batch numbers.
“We are happy at the level of compliance in shopping malls, we attribute this development to the increased sensitization that we have rolled out in the recent past targeted at retailers and traders on the need for them to effectively manage their stock rotation schedules,” she said.
Ms Zulu further said ZABS would continue to check products throughout the festive season to safeguard the health and safety of the public.