Caswell Tlali
MASERU — Trade Minister Temeki Tšolo has launched a countrywide campaign to inspect food businesses after claims that some traders, especially of Chinese origin, sell rotten food. Tšolo took action last week after claims that a meat outlet, Sky Country, which is operated by Basotho businessmen of Chinese origin, sold rotten meat packages. Complaints were aired on several radio stations and the Lesotho Television that the company, which stocks meat in large quantities from South Africa, had kept rotten meat in its stores and the streets had a foul smell.
At the same time, another Chinese shop in Maputsoe was reported to be doing the same thing. Other reports were from Thaba-Tseka where it was reported that a Chinese-owned shop was also used as a residential place where a Chinese woman even gave birth — right inside the shop. Claims were many that in Mohale’s Hoek and Mafeteng Chinese shops were selling unwholesome food.
Commentators on various radio stations, especially Moafrika FM, accused Tšolo of being indecisive even after hearing public complaints about Chinese traders. Complaints from Mokhotlong were that the Chinese bribed police officers and some senior government officials to avoid being arrested for selling expired food. Tšolo, charged up by public criticism, launched the countrywide clean-up campaign. The campaign is carried out by trade ministry officials, health inspectors, local authorities and the police.
“We are not targeting the Chinese but our campaign is meant to stop traders, irrespective of their nationality, from selling foods that are not good for public consumption,” Tšolo said. “Our campaign was so effective to an extent that when we were still inspecting in Maputsoe, some traders in Mafeteng started disposing off rotten foodstuffs from their shops,” he said.
Tšolo appealed to the public to report shops that sell unwholesome food and government officials who receive bribes from traders so that they can turn a blind eye to shops owners who do not abide by the law.
Tšolo’s campaign comes barely three weeks after the Chinese ambassador Hu Dingxian praised the Chinese business community in Lesotho for “providing better services”. Hu was responding to a question if he was aware of the Chinese’s tendency to operate in dirty shops, opening small businesses and competing with street vendors. He said there were “good guys and bad guys.” This is the sixth year since the Consumer Protection Association and the now defunct Lesotho Consumer Organisation incessantly complained in different forums that some traders, specifically pointing an accusing finger at the Chinese, were selling expired food.
The Maseru City Council has on several cases hauled some traders to the magistrate’s court where they were fined M200 and released. In some cases it was discovered that the traders have machines that print new expiry dates.