Counterfeits, forgeries, illegal copies, fakes are mostly associated (at least in high income countries) with prestigious brands. For some, it has become a bit of a joke. Recently returned visitors to South East Asia, in particular, return, brandishing their fake Rolexes, Lacoste shirts and pirate DVDs with a degree of pride. "Look what I got - all this for $50..." A couple of years ago, I took the editor of ACCA's members' magazine, Accounting & Business, to task about an ill-judged travel article telling readers whereabouts in Bangkok (or Phnom Penh, I can't remember) was the best place to buy pirate copies and designer fakes..... only to be informed that it wasn't intended to be taken seriously, with an implicit suggestion that I was really being a bit of a sanctimonious killjoy.
In fact, it is a massively important and serious issue, especially in developing countries, where forgeries and fakes are not restricted to high-end discretionary expenditure, but cascade down to basic essentials, like seeds, crop protection products, medicines and cement. Here in Uganda, the press report that bags of cement are opened, adulterated with sand, and repackaged for sale to the unsuspecting public. Regrettably, it's become a fairly regular occurrence to hear of new buildings collapsing in Uganda, often with considerable loss of life. Likewise, we periodically hear of chalk dust, sugar and salt being marketed as antibiotics and of children's vaccines being adulterated - all to make a fast buck heedless of the long term consequences on individuals.
One of AAC's investees - Lachlan Kenya, a distributor of crop protection products - has frequently drawn my attention to the risk of counterfeiting in the Kenyan market. Lachlan addresses this risk by using special packaging (including holograms) and trying to educate its distributors, stockists and end-customers on the risks of using counterfeit products. But it's a difficult task, staying ahead of the counterfeiters, requiring annual investment in new packaging. In a recent conversation with the business, one representative estimated - to my astonishment - that more than 50% of crop protection products in Uganda were fake. Separately, one of our seed company investees in Uganda, NASECO, has reported that considerable quantities of seed products in the Ugandan market are actually no more than grain, dyed red to appear as if it has been treated with fungicides. From a business point of view, the existence of fake product is bad enough (as it affects confidence in the industry as a whole), but when fake product is packaged and sold in fake NASECO bags, it is potentially disastrous for the individual business.
The press assures us that the Ugandan Bureau of Standards is stepping up its activities against counterfeiting. This is good news (provided it is resourced adequately to carry out its quality inspections across the country - which I very much doubt) but much more needs to be done. In particular, purveyors of fake products must be brought to justice and punished severely. My view is that counterfeiting basic products like cement and agricultural inputs (and babymilk, as in the infamous melamine scandal) is tantamount to a crime against humanity: it is (in some cases) deadly, it is indiscriminate and it requires considerable planning and preparation. Left unchecked, counterfeiting destroys businesses, markets, industries and, in its worst form, lives.
At least in this regard, I don't mind being a sanctimonious killjoy.
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