Uganda Consumers Protection Association (UCPA) has piled pressure on government to ban all babycare products manufactured by the South African based Tiger Brands Limited.
UCPA appealed to government to place an indefinite ban on the importation, sale and purchase of these products in Uganda on grounds that they are harmful to human life, as it was recently discovered by Common Markets of Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) that these goods contain cancerous material.
The affected products include Purity & Elizabeth Anne’s Fresh Baby Powder (400 g), Purity Essential Baby Powder and Purity & Elizabeth Anne’s Essentials Baby Powder in the measurements of 100, 200 and 400 g.
Kenya Bureau of Standards (KBS) a regulatory body for product standards in Kenya is the latest to place a ban on the importation, sale, purchase and distribution of these products on the Kenyan market.
The Chief Executive Officer for UCPA Sam Kuloba Watasa urged the government of Uganda to use the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) and follow suit, regarding what Kenya did, in order to shield nationals from the risk of contracting cancer.
“What we want UNBS to do is to issue a statement, or an announcement, such that consumers gets to know that these products are dangerous and should not be on the market,” Kuloba Watasa cautioned.
He urged UNBS to dispatch its market surveillance unit to all supermarkets to investigate, such that these products, for instance those that were banned by the government of Kenya are not accessed by Ugandans.
Comesa competition Commission, a body charged with regulating the standards of products on markets of states which are enveloped in a 21 regional bloc declared a string of products made by Tiger Brands as toxic, after they came into contact with a cancer causing material.
The material, known as asbestos is chemical in nature and its exposure is linked to various cancers. This was discovered in the test samples of these products.
Metie Demissie Disasa, the registrar for Comesa Competition Commission issued a notice, warning that the withdrawal is a precautionary measure after a batch of pharmaceutical grade talc powder, a raw material used in the production of finished powder was found in the samples.
“The Comesa Competition Commission hereby notifies the general public that Tiger Brands Limited South Africa has recalled certain batches of its purity essentials baby powder product.”
“Tiger brands has indicated that the recall is precautionary as the raw material with the detected trace levels of asbestos did not meet the company’s quality and safety standards,” reads the notice in part.
Last week, Comesa Competition Commission declared that contaminated batches had been shipped into Eastern and South African states of Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Seychelles and urged the public in these states to exercise utmost caution when buying, including alerting authorities for action in areas where recalled goods are still being sold.
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