Fake products that can kill now on supermarket shelves

Substandard or suspicious mixtures of maize flour, sugar, tea, alcohol, juices, and cigarettes have hit the market, packaged in images and names of fast-selling brands.

They are competing for your unwitting eye almost everywhere, including supermarkets.

Other products are medicine, electronics, fertilisers, shoes and other apparels, vehicle spare parts, insurance stickers, iron-sheets, pens and beauty products.

They have canny resemblance in label and package to popular brands. The difference is found only in the content or ingredients — with some, such as medicines, being chalk or mixtures of chemicals that could harm you. Fruit juices are made from contaminated water and suspect chemicals, according to anti-counterfeit agents.

A lobby that takes care of manufacturers’ interests, Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM), says criminal networks of counterfeiters have seized 12 per cent of the motor vehicle and accessory sector market, 15 per cent of beverages, 12 per cent of the tobacco sector, 10 per cent of the cosmetics and beauty care market and 30 to 40 per cent of medicines. Implicitly, almost half of the over-the-counter drugs are fake.

Nairobi’s Kariobangi estate is a factory for almost everything counterfeit. Cheap sugar imports from Tanzania are packaged as brands of Mumias, Sony or Nzoia sugar. Nairobi’s Duruma Road produces Ketepa tea look-alikes. Forgeries of a popular durable iron-sheet come from China with “Made in Kenya” labels. So are Sportsman cigarettes from China and the UAE. Fake maize flour going as wholesome is packaged in Dandora and Kayole.

Some medicines labelled “Made in Kenya” complete with Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) quality marks are actually poisonous or cheap imitations.

The most faked drugs are those used in control or treatment of cancer, heart problems, obesity, hypertension, HIV, malaria, diabetes, erectile dysfunction, asthma and fungal infections, according to The Study To Determine Severity Of The Counterfeit Problem in Kenya, a KAM report.

Authorities say they have noted a shift in nature of this illicit business, from hardware products such as machinery, to foods and beverages.
“We now have counterfeiters who sell very close to the original price. In some instances, they are the same price,” says Stephen Mallowah, chief executive, Kenya Anti-Counterfeit Agency (ACA), the statutory body charged with fighting fakes and substandard goods.

With the price and packaging almost similar, the ignorant consumer can hardly tell fakes from genuine brands. “Sometime the counterfeits look so genuine that you need the trademark owners themselves to tell you the difference,” says Francis Kamau, ACA senior inspector.

Yet it is fake alcohol that has confounded authorities. Oblivious to many drinkers, two in every five bottles of popular brands of spirits (brandy, gin, vodka, rum and whisky) are suspected poison, packaged in the city’s backstreets and posh residences. Some are exported to neighbouring countries.

In just two years, ACA has raided 20 “breweries” following a flood of complaints from trademark owners. The first swoop was on a residence occupied by a Chinese in Nairobi’s South C in 2010, just after the agency had been set up. They recovered packaging material of products owned by Kenya Wines Agencies Ltd (KWAL).

In the latest raid, inspectors found replicas of top brandy and vodka brands in two factories in Kikuyu, Kiambu County. The culprits had infiltrated the certified supply chain, including supermarkets, to distribute the products. They even own bars, wines and spirits outlets.

“We have been getting many complaints pertaining to alcohol,” says Kamau. “There’s counterfeiting of alcohol done by our people.”

Nairobi’s Mfangano Street is the warehouse and sell-off point for the replicas (chemicals laced with small quantities of the genuine brands) produced in Kariobangi, Kiambu, Southlands and on Mombasa Road.

“Our studies indicate that almost 40 per cent of the spirits sold upcountry are fake. Even in well-policed urban areas, one in every five bottles is a look-alike of our brands”, according to a top official of a Nairobi-based brewery. A recent research by KAM revealed that almost 15 per cent of alcoholic drinks are counterfeits.

Spirits are prone to faking because they are very profitable, have a large potential market with a developed distribution network and their replicas are easy to conceal, even as they have powerful branding.

Studies by ACA and KAM appear to confirm Saturday Nation’s investigations.

“It is a big problem; a global phenomenon. Consumerism is high and people are more aware of brands. Counterfeiters are ahead of manufacturers,” Mallowah says. Key companies, including East African Breweries Limited (EABL) and KWAL, keep rebranding their products just to be a step ahead of prowling forgers.

Haco Tiger Brands (EA) Ltd sales director Anthony Mburu says counterfeiting is not ending, but growing bigger. The company has been in the eye of the storm since counterfeiters attacked its flagship brand, BIC.

“Its nature has evolved: We now have people who take your product and make pass-offs,” he says.

BIC’s Chinese imitations include Obama, SinArline and Paul. Obama is the fastest selling ball point pen in Tanzania.

Nobody knows just how much this illicit business is worth. KAM says its members lose Sh70 billion annually, while the taxman is unable to squeeze Sh20 billion from the faceless crooks. ACA puts the figure at around $800 million (Sh69 billion) a year.

“The figures are anecdotal. They could be higher or lower,” Mr Mallowah says.

In context, Sh100 billion is seven per cent of Kenya’s 2013/4 budget. It can pay public school teachers two-fold. It can run several ministries and cover half the budgetary allocations to all county governments.

In fact, counterfeit networks in Kenya can adequately take care of half of Rwanda’s 2013/4 budget.

Implicitly, counterfeits can destabilise Kenya. They wreck the economy, discourage foreign investors, kill jobs and harm your health — especially fake alcoholic drinks, cosmetics and beauty products, electricals and electronics and foodstuffs.

They kill innovations for no investor will want to fund an idea that risks being stolen and even bankroll terrorism.

“The number of job losses cannot be quantified as not many companies go public when they close down. A good example, however, is Eveready Kenya Ltd, which closed their Nakuru plant due to fake dry cells,” KAM’s assistant executive officer Joseph Wairiuko says.

According to WHO and Nacada, about 10 million Kenyans consume alcohol. This means one in every four people is at risk, thanks to proliferation of the uncertified drinks. No local studies are available to link adulterated alcohol to human health. But medical experts are convinced the suspicious liquor is claiming lives.

Indeed, liver diseases have shot up although one cannot specifically link them to the counterfeit alcoholic drinks.

Nevertheless, methanol, a key ingredient in spirits, can cause permanent blindness or death.

Now the private sector seeks to co-fund research on the impact of counterfeits. “We are very much interested. Government should take the lead,” Mr Mburu, the sales director of Haco Tiger Brands (EA) Ltd, says.

Manufacturers have noted an ominous surge in counterfeiting during general elections — always viewed as a time of sprawling bribery.

Apparently, fakes have replaced sugar imports as the traditional source of campaign funds. “Counterfeiting… (makes) available dirty money for manipulative politics that occur most often when elections are around the corner,” KAM says in a recent report on the severity of the counterfeit problem.

“Counterfeits and substandard goods have become the biggest driver of corruption. We have noticed that they are at their peak during elections,” Mr Mburu says.

For legal reasons, Saturday Nation cannot name the politicians, top State officials, and prominent business people involved in the malpractice.

Yet wedged between the crooks and the law are corrupt customs officials, public officers, police officers, and quality certifiers — who guarantee them unfettered operation.

“Public discussion about the massive illicit economy is muted because of the power and the patronage wielded by the networks involved in this business in East Africa, some of whom are highly placed in government,” says Peter Gastrow in Termites at Work, a report on organised crime and state erosion in Kenya, published by the International Peace Institute, New York.

ACA, is understandably cautious. “Counterfeiting is less risky. There’s less scrutiny compared to narcotics, smuggling, and arms and human trafficking, which are much riskier. I don’t know if there’s a correlation (between elections and surge in fakes),” Mr Mallowah says.

It would appear that the philosophical landscape of the counterfeiter has changed — the hitherto cliché “cheap is expensive” that described replicas has become “expensive is cheap”.

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