Sat, 17 Dec 2016 10:21:23 +0000
By MAILES BANDA
ZAMBIAN consumers have been advised by the Zambia Bureau of Standards to be quality conscious and stop buying second hand underwear.
ZABS dead of marketing and public relations Hezel Zulu said if consumers stopped buying used underwear there was not going to be a market for them.
She said people should place their health before anything else and desist from buying goods that had potential to negatively affect their health.
Mrs. Zulu said there was a reduction in the sale of second hand underwear because ZABS has been regulating them at the point of entry into the country.
“We came to a realisation that confiscating the second hand underwear from the sellers was not helping stop the trade, hence we decided to target the bigger importers. We have our officer stationed at all the entry points in the country and we get them before they reach the warehouses,” she said.
She stated that even with the regulations at the entry point some unscrupulous people still managed to smuggle the forbidden merchandise in the country.
“There is a reduction in the number of second hand underwear on the market due to this regulation; we are just from burning nine bales of second hand underwear among other expired goods in Chunga and this number is a reflection that the regulation at the borders is helping,’’ she said.
She explained that ZABS regularly inspected warehouses that stocked second hand clothes to confiscate the merchandise that managed to pass through the borders.
“We conduct intensive inspections of warehouses because we are aware that some unscrupulous people manage to smuggle the second hand underwear into the country, hence we try by all means to intercept them before they reach the final consumer,’’ she said.
