Spar Arcades Zambia has been dragged to court for selling ‘under weight’ bread to unsuspecting consumers.
Spar, a chain store which specialises in selling various commodities mostly consumables have been taken to court for selling 40 loaves of
standard white bread which were all weighing less than the recommended 700 grammes.
The store has through its Service Department Manager Memory Chilukutu accepted the offence through a plea of guilt.
Lusaka Magistrate David Simusamba entered a plea of guilt against the company which is expected to appear on May 18 for facts and possible
sentencing.
It is alleged that Spar Arcades on January 13, 2012 sold 40 loaves of bread to consumers weighing less than the required standards.
Investigations on the weights and other measurements on the loaves was carried out on the company after some members of the public complained about the store selling underweight bread.
Typical everyone who come to Zambia exploits us. Honestly don’t we have Zambians who can open up retail stores to compete with these cheap ones from South Africa
Well done plaintiff.Too mush gong’as pa zambia.
simple imprisonment for the manager is good and fair judgement……just kidding! but i hate it that everyone wants to gong’a us!
Heavy fine so that everyone learns!
The same should be extended to cheating Indians in town who are selling TV and Music Systems with fake brand names such Philips, Sony etc. We are fed up of  paying alot of money for fake items.
but why buy the fake products in the first place, you are the same people who go about complaining that we are being sold fack goods and yet you encourage the tread the best is to stop buying them and but the geniune products from reputable dealers.
Why has it taken so long to wake up and on bread,lets also zero in on expiry dates!
Heavy fine. This is not the first and last time they are doing this.
Zambia is a dumping place for all sub-standard products. What is ZABS and Govt doing about this?
What a disappointment!
shoprite shud be the next.most products are out date.can some authorities do something
We need to strenthen the institutions that protect and enforce consumer rights. I thought we used to have Zambia Consumer association headed by some Ililonga chap. Wonder if it is exists.
Consumers in Zambia should have the right to get good value for their money.
YES THIS SHOULD BE EXTENDED TO OTHER AREA LIKE EXPIRY DATE & OTHER OTHER THHNGS THEY RE GONGALING US!!!!
Next time I go shopping to spar or shoprite/picknpay/game, I will carry my scale.Twacula pa fula.
About time! In my opinion, I believe Spar is over rated and definitely over priced and I hope they are fined BEEEG. I’ve never had issues with Pick ‘n Pay (woodlands) actually love their bread. I hated going to shoprite because of poor service, period.
But in this case, why did it have to take consumers for this to even go as far as the court? ZABS is the biggest culprit here. In Zambia, we have organizations for everything but they don’t do anything or serve any purpose. And you wonder why most Asian store owners still have the ‘NO REFUND NO EXCHANGE NO RETURN signs on their store windows? Where in the world have you seen a retailer that sells you a commodity that you can neither return nor exchange or better yet, get a refund if the item is defective? ZAMBIA. Yaba!
The problem in zambia is that the organisations that protect consumers are doing little to protect the citizens e.g ZICTA People are being robbed daylight by network phone companies through bogus advertisements and promotions. anyway this is wakeup call to all people to report people who are stealing from the public.
The body that protects consumers is the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission. There offices are at the main post office and i think so far they are doing there best to protect consumers. I recall they fined some auto mechanic companies that had formed a cartel to charge uniform prices. They recently admonished Banks and told them to stop having prefered lists of law firms and estate agents when dealing with mortgages. Zambian consumers also need to be educated about their rights.
Let us not be so emotional about spar.There are so many things that have gone wrong in our country.The goverment should come up with a system that will detect these vices.Mealie meal,detergents, beef,cooking oil,bathing soaps and many other essential comodities are being sold underweight or otherwise without being noticed by a poor customer.We should learn to be vigil.
# 17, you are right- alot of packaged commodities are under weight like the washing detergent pastes, mealie meal, etc. In those days when we had the price control such issues were taken care of by the state. Who is protecting the poor consumer in the current scenario? Some of the organizations meant to carry out such functions are now just on paper and have no teeth to bite, hence the consumer will continue suffering!
The store has accepted the offence? Oh I see “basumina umulandu”!!
I as well as my friends appeared to be digesting the nice recommendations from the website while all of a sudden I got an awful feeling I had not thanked the site owner for those secrets. All of the young men were certainly very interested to study all of them and already have actually been tapping into them. Appreciation for really being quite kind and then for picking out these kinds of impressive issues millions of individuals are really desperate to be aware of. Our own sincere apologies for not expressing gratitude to earlier.
Maybe this is another way to collect corruption money! What about the bread that is sold on the streets which is under weight.
No body is going to invest in Zambia if people are going to be harassed for minor issues. We already know, we cannot develop the country on our own.
If you feel your consumer rights are violated, then you must take your business else where!