MBS flushes out outdated scales
The Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS) has reiterated its commitment to continue flushing out uncertified weighing scales in an inspection exercise currently underway in all trading centres across the country.
MBS director general, Davlin Chokazinga told the Malawi News Agency (Mana) in an interview that the exercise would run till August this year.
“This inspection exercise started in April and it will run till August because we are targeting this harvesting season where it has been discovered that most farmers toiled during agricultural season with an expectation that they would get more income after selling their produce.
“But, it is worrisome to note that such farmers end up being cheated by some traders and this in one way or another perpetuates poverty among them,” said Chokazinga.
He added that the clean-up exercise which he said is being done concurrently with sensitisation campaigns would enable farmers to closely monitor that their farm yields are being sold to traders using the right mode of weighing scales.
“Right now, when such traders want to buy farm yields from these local farmers they come with their already manipulated scales, a move that is contributing to unfair trade because such growers get less of their valued product.
“This has not spared our mere consumers who are paying a lot and in turn get less of the commodities.
“So, we are appealing to them to be more vigilant and report any suspicious act to relevant authorities including the police in order to end the malpractice,” he said emphasising that the scales that are certified by the Bureau are those that have a sticker labelled MBS.
However, Chokazinga could not shed more light on the number of outdated and uncertified scales they have managed to confiscate since the start of the exercise saying the total figures shall be known once the inspection is over.
“Though we are yet to have the statistics on confiscated scales, I can ably say these regular inspection exercises are yielding positive results because every time the Bureau is witnessing a drastic change in the use of uncertified weighing scales in markets,” he said.
