The disclosure earlier this week that quantities of Colgate toothpaste that expired eighteen years ago were still being sold on the local market and that this scandalous circumstance was only brought to the attention of the Government Analyst–Food and Drug Department (GA-FDD) through a consumer complaint, is a manifestation of just how ineffective our consumer protection mechanisms are, how completely disregarded the attendant laws have become and how low some ‘business houses’ can stoop in their quest to ‘turn a dollar.’
The other point that should be made here of course is that, over time, stories have been told about business houses securing access to clandestine official support in having expired goods imported into the country and distributed to consumers who, frankly, are not in many instances, altogether unsuspecting but consider themselves ‘fortunate’ to have access to various types of goods at what is usually referred to as ‘knock down’ prices, whatever the attendant health risks. So that it is not at all unfair to say that the presence of expired goods on the local market is not, in every instance, a function of clandestine importation but of activities that are ‘sanctioned’ somewhere along the chain of authority.
Then there is the question of distribution of these expired products by sellers who couldn’t care less about the dangers associated with the distribution of expired consumer goods, including foods. One might add, of course, that this is not an issue which the various local Business Support Organizations (BSO’s) have been known to set their faces against, so that they too, by their indifference, provide a measure of comfort for the transgressors.
Finally, there is the regulatory agency, the GA-FDD, the entity responsible for overseeing compliance with the laws governing expiry dates and related matters. Truth be told, the GA-FDD, with its hobbled monitoring capacity and what, reportedly, are instances of aggressive official pushback by those who would accommodate the breaking of the law, finds itself swimming against the tide. Frankly, it is an enormous embarrassment for the GA-FDD that it finds itself, all too frequently, discovering these indiscretions belatedly and then only through accidental customer discovery and reporting.
Contextually, to deny that government must, to a large extent, ‘carry the can’ for these transgressions, is to bury our heads in the sand. Indeed, the circumstances under which the GA-FDD has to function – poorly accommodated, inadequately staffed and hopelessly underequipped – speak for themselves. Frankly, there does not exist, as far as we know, a shred of verifiable evidence that the authorities are suitably seized of the broader strategic importance of the GA-FDD and the need to suitably equip the entity to perform its functions efficiently. More than that, there have been reports of instances in which the ability of the GA-FDD to execute its functions are decidedly undermined through deliberate interventions from ‘higher‘ up’ in matters pertaining to how the agency should go about its work.
This is not the first occasion on which the GA-FDD has had to, belatedly, bring to public attention instances like the extant one of the expired toothpaste. The Agency, of course, would hardly be aware of the extent to which consumer use of toothpaste that ought to have been off the shelves almost two decades ago may have had to suffer health-related consequences.
Needless to say, there is the considerable likelihood that with Christmas approaching, other consumer items with long-expired shelf lives could be trotted out and offered to consumers. More than that, if precedent is anything to go by, the instance of the long-expired toothpaste is likely to come and go, making room for disclosures of other such transgressions in the fullness of time.
Things can only be changed in this regard if the GAFDD is allowed to function as it should, if the shady underpinnings that allow for the importation of expired goods are halted and if, as a matter of policy, the authorities take consumer protection far more seriously than they do at this time. One might add that our Business Support Organizations, too, have a role to play in supporting the GA-FDD in pushing back against occurrences like this toothpaste expiry date outrage.