Counterfeit products and Guyanese

May 25, 2014 Editorial

During February 2013 it was reported that the Agriculture Ministry had indicated that claims by the National Milling Company (NAMILCO) that someone was selling bogus flour on the local market were being investigated even though – as the minister offered, there was no real evidence to substantiate the claim.
Now the latest in scams involving the foisting of bogus products on the Guyanese people is in the news with reports confirming the presence of three counterfeit beauty products. What makes the continued emergence of bogus products on the local market all the more alarming is the fact that recourse to criminal prosecution may only net a fine that can best be described as laughable. Maybe it is time that class action suits become a part of the litigation process in the judicial system whereby citizens affected negatively by the use of these products can seek civil legal remedies from those unscrupulous ‘business persons’ who prey on gullible and unsuspecting consumers.
Last January, this newspaper reported that an imitation margarine bearing the ‘Golden Cream’ label and stating it was a product of Guyana was found in shops in Regions Five and Six. Sterling Products, manufacturer of the authentic Golden Cream brand, clearly recognized that any quality problems could have been blamed on the company and raised the alarm. Notwithstanding the Government Analyst Food and Drug Department’s valid claim that it has insufficient staff to visit every supermarket, it needs to adopt a more proactive posture in protecting the safety of consumers.
This suggestion does not preclude importers and manufacturers from doing their part in the same respect since currently there is no sustained public awareness against fake goods. None of the two companies gave any party permission to package and label any substitute of their products.
It is time that the authorities shed their lax approach in dealing with what appears to be an undesirable trend. On July 26, 2010 High Court marshals took possession of numerous boxes of bogus Piccadilly brand shoes after the authorized dealer moved for the seizure of the items from a retailer.
Worthy of note is the possibility that the authorized dealer could have suffered tremendous losses due to the fact that persons were returning defective shoes to the store for refund or replacement. But bogus practices do not end with consumables; way back before 2009 an unscrupulous woman with various aliases and posing as a biomedical engineer, and owner of a medical laboratory conned aspiring nurses into believing that they could attain certificates at her nursing school.
Students paid hard earned cash in the belief that the school was accredited by the Guyana Nursing Council and would have allowed students entry into the three local nursing schools, namely the Georgetown School of Nursing, the New Amsterdam Nursing School, and the Charles Rosa Nursing School at Linden.
In our peculiar Guyanese situation it goes without saying that she did not face official condemnation except for a vapid statement by the Ministry of Health that that particular school was not accredited to provide nursing instructions.
Sometimes scam artists move from the creative to the outrageous, but then again desperate circumstances perceived or experienced, sometimes dictate the pursuit of what could be termed foolhardy endeavours. Take the 18-year-old prospective police recruit who had learned to forge his birth certificate to play a football game when he was 15 years old. The bogus document was discovered during the police background check; he was unfortunate.
Not so the police officer who retired in the lofty rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police who at the time of applying to become a Cadet Officer presented false academic certificates. The Guyana Defence Force refused four cadet officers after they tendered forged CXC Secondary Education Certificates in order to gain entry to the army.
It is not unknown for executives and employees to claim academic qualifications to gain superiority over their colleagues. More importantly perhaps is the potential loss to the tax and revenue administration when the viability of government including the Guyana Revenue Authority and the National Insurance Scheme is threatened by the tendering of bogus certificates of compliance to get past the inconvenient problem of unpaid arrears.

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Counterfeit products and Guyanese

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