Though the frequency of news of market monitoring activities carried out by the authorities has been going up every year, its actual effectiveness seems to be negligible with cases of black marketing and other ‘anti-business acts’ having gone unabated in recent years.[break]
Mainly three government bodies – the Department of Commerce and Supply Management (DoCSM), the Department of Food Technology and Quality Control (DoFTQC) and the Nepal Bureau of Standards and Metrology (NBSM) -- are authorized to conduct market monitoring.
These agencies, which are charged with the responsibility of discouraging black marketing and other forms of ‘anomalies’ in the market, have been conducting market monitoring mostly on a seasonal basis -- that is when festivals are around the corner and in periods when buying goes up.
Even these infrequent checks are getting less effective with almost no effect in the market with the government bodies having a crunch in human resource.
Despite regular inspections and monitoring from the agencies, black marketing -- including food adulteration and sales of sub-standard food -- is still rampant and poses a threat to human health.
During market inspections over the last couple of year, officials have found that most eateries, commodity stores and food companies are not up to the mark in terms of food quality and sanitation.
DoFTQC filed cases against 22 food companies and sealed three of them during the period between Dashain-Tihar this year on charges of using sub-standard materials in sweets and failing to maintain proper hygiene in the production process.
And it’s not just the purveyors of consumable goods that were found to be wanting in standard. Traders of very expensive goods like gold were also found to have been offering up products that were not quite on the level with what their stickers described.
A couple of month ago, DoCSM filed cases against some jewelry shops for not maintaining the industry standards of quality in gold used in the ornaments.
The inspections always catch the public’s attention through the media coverage they get, but nobody is wiser as to what happened afterwards even when cases are filed or other types of action has been taken against the wrongdoers.
Because there is a general lack of transparency in legal proceedings and other forms of action against those violating the market laws, the general public is always in the dark about the punishment handed out. Even those members of the general people who have volunteered to properly scrutinize government activities to protect consumers are not that serious themselves about their own rights as consumers.
“Government officials do not practice transparency during and after the initial monitoring. The general people never get to know what sort of action is going to be taken against those who violating the market laws,” Jyoti Baniya, the general secretary of the Forum for Protection of Consumer Rights - Nepal, says.
The failure of the government to enforce the regulation to improve the quality of goods is very clearly reflected in the quality status of eateries along the Prithwi Highway.
When DoFTQC began a campaign to categorize the standard of the eateries in terms of quality of service and the food they serve, only a dozen out of the 183 inspected eateries were found to have been maintaining proper hygiene and quality.
Though officials are claiming that their monitoring activities have been increasingly effective with the increasing number of monitoring, in reality the results they claim have not been seen.
During the Dashain and Tihar festival this year, hundreds of inspections were made across the country followed by clarifications from different individuals and firms, and filing of cases against them.
Despite claiming that they are doing their best to control black marketing, government officials themselves also acknowledge that the monitoring has not been as effective as it should have been.
“Given the limited resources and laws to take action on the spot, we are not able to make our monitoring effective,” Jiwan Prava Lama, the director general of DoFTQC, says.
It has been a routine for the concerned government agencies to intensify monitoring activities only before and during major festivals.
Such feeble monitoring only encourages those who are active in anti-market activities. Food inspection officials should not forget that though consumption of goods is high during the festive season, instances of black marketing are always the same round the year.
Without a proper vision, transparent policies and a campaign-based monitoring, anomalies will never be controlled.
Consumer rights activists who are closely watching market monitoring believe that any monitoring should be able to bring about change in the society.
“The monitoring activities from the government are like formalities which are not bringing tangible results to improve the market situation and support the maintaining of food quality in the market,” says Baniya.
Related story
'Lack of integrity, transparency leads to low integrity in hydr...
