Jonglei: Bor traders accused of selling goods of low quality and quantity
April 27, 2012 (BOR) – At least 24 traders stand accused of selling either expired goods or deliberately providing low quantities to customers according to the state directorate of grades and standard measures in Bor.
Anyuon Deng told Sudan Tribune that his office has caught a number of shop keepers, wholesalers and butchers cheating the public by selling expired goods, rotten meat, and goods with less weight and the use of faulty weighing machines.
When a general inspection was carried out in Bor market, on 3 April, about 15 Butchers were caught using faulty weighing machines, selling rotten meat and others traders were found selling expired goods, or goods with less weight than advertised.
Deng said the a community leaders in charge of the inspection brought to his office the people caught in the market and the their names were reported to the police for their cases to be tried in the court.
He said store that are full of expired goods which will be burnt after the court cases.
Deng said the court will sit on Monday, 30 April to decide the next fate of the 15 Butchers who are accused of cheating customers using faulty scales and weights.
“We have opened the case against butchers who were found to have been cheating the community for so long. These people were using weighing machines with the hollow weighing metallic stone which resulted into less weight than expected. Now the court will sit on Monday to see their next fate”, he said.
Deng said the list of other traders with low quality and quantity goods will be taken after the case against the butchers is finished. He said the list consists of Sudanese, South Sudanese, Ugandans, and Kenyan nationals.
According to the South Sudan Penal code, act of 2008 chapter 9, section 173 and 174: ‘whoever fraudulently uses any instrument/false weight or false measure for weighing which he or she knows to be a false commits an offence and upon convection shall be sentenced to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years or with fine or both’.
Jacob Achiek Piok, a student of law at the John Garang Memorial University for Science and Technology said the South Sudan lacks customer protection laws.
Solomon Pur and Kornilo Ajang who are also students of law at the same university, said the act of selling expired goods and goods of a low quantity and quality is a serious crime.
Deng said the butchers gave their customers a quarter or three quarters of a kilogram instead of a full kilogram of meat, which cost 18-20 South Sudanese Pounds (SSP).
He said they were using small magnets under the machines to pull down the tray containing the meat quickly.
Gai Malet a butcher in Bor, told Sudan Tribune that some of his colleagues were using illegal machines because the prices of buying bulls/cows for butchery in Bor were so high.
The inflated price was caused by middlemen who were taking away the profit from market traders, he said.
“We are selling one kilo of meat at 20 pounds now. Some sell it at 18. Prices are not determined here but at the place where cattle and goats are sold”, Malet said.
“If the government cannot eliminate the middle men, then [we] will have no option but to sell it at higher price, otherwise we may be working at losses”, he said.
(ST)