The Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) has spoken out on the reported fake eggs on the Ugandan market.
This is after Sunday Vision of 28th October 2018 run a story under the headline: “Fake eggs hit Kampala Market”.
UNBS says the story contains inaccuracies and misrepresentation of facts particularly on comments attributed to their market surveillance officer. “The products referred to in the article by our market surveillance team were actually sweets in packages that looked like egg shells but clearly labelled as Funny Toys. Apart from the appearance of the package, the product did not contain any features meant to mislead the public into believing that they are actual eggs,” UNBS says in a statement dated 29th October, 2018.
It adds: “ Our intervention as UNBS was due to suspected tampering with expiry dates and labels in Chinese language in violation of the standard for labelling pre-packaged foods (US EAS 38: 2014).”
The standards body adds that they have not received complaints or come across cases of fake eggs on the market.
“However, as a statutory body with a mandate to enforce standards to protect the health and safety of consumers and the environment against dangerous substandard products, we would like to urge any person with information that can help us in our investigations to report…,” it says, adding that fighting substandard products needs a concerted effort involving UNBS working together with manufacturers, traders, consumers, and other government agencies.
