{UAH} Food Safety- The Case of rotten Marina Margarine spread being sold in Uganda Super markets!

Fellow Ugandans,

Food safety is so important- if a nation with limited health resources such as Uganda -wants to reduce the cost of hospitalization and indeed to keep it's folks healthy . Many Ugandans are gravely concerned about the prevalence of Cancer in the country! Yet -when traders are allowed to sell expired food products such as this story about Marina margarine - which is visibly rotten -one wonders whether we have the equivalent of the US Food and Drug Administration working in Uganda-to ensure that folks don't eat rotten and expired foods or drugs. If such bodies exist -why are they not working for the people in such an instance of criminal neglect. I continue to ask this question regarding Uganda consumer matters -increasingly nations are going after irresponsible corporations -the tobacco industry, Chinese manufacturers of toys laced with lead, and bad children formula from China-all through their public prosecutors or in the US the Attorneys General offices. I have lived to an adult age in Uganda -but I have never seen any consumer advocacy of that sort from our DPP - is there no such lectures of advocacy on consumer goods in the schools our lawyers who hold these offices go to - if that is the case how do we change that hands off culture in this day and age - where corporations are all too eager to sell off their products, regardless of the danger it poses to Public! We are in dire need of Consumer advocacy in Uganda and folks in charge of consumer protection ought to step up to the plate.

Tendo Kaluma

Ugandan In Boston

From Rita Kaggwa.

Asha Batenga is a baker and the proprietor of "Cakely". She purchased a box of margarine (Marina Fat) from Capital Shoppers, Ntinda. When she opened it up at her premises, she found that the margarine was rotten. So she got the margarine, receipt and her shopping card and went back to talk to the supervisor who told her that he could do nothing about it. The manager also told her that it is not Capital Shoppers problem but that she should contact the supplier who in this case is Mukwano. Asha wondered where Mukwano came in since she bought from Capital Shoppers. The next day, she returned and demanded to speak to the manager herself. In his words " t is not our fault. And I hear you were threatening action against us. You? As who? Go and check and if you find another box that is spoilt, we will talk." So she also went to the same aisle and picked 3 boxes and demanded that they be cut before she would pay. Indeed, all the 3 boxes contained rotten margarine!Asha went back to the aisle and eventually found two boxes of margarine that were fine. She paid and then posted on her social media page. What followed was unbelievable! After the hullabaloo that followed, Capital Shoppers management hacked into her Facebook account, deleted that post and deleted her social media pages. The war was officially on so she alerted another group called Kampala Food network who took it up and also went to the media. Yesterday, she opened a new Facebook page but Capital Shoppers has also deleted her new account. To make it worse, they are constantly sending her death threats if she does not keep quiet. That is how Capital Shoppers has decided to reward a customer.

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 "To ask a dictator to implement democratic measures after 30 years in power is an oxymoron" 

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