As long as the people purchase products from unauthorized places where the conditions are insanitary, the efforts made by the authorities and civil society to ensure the respect for consumers’ rights are useless. It is the consumers who should not allow their rights to be violated and should inform the authorities or specialized NGOs when they purchase products of a poor quality. Such suggestions were made in a press club meeting staged by East Europe Foundation, IPN reports.
Sergiu Lelic, deputy division head at the Consumer Protection Agency, said the number of complaints submitted by consumers is on the rise and this shows that they became more informed and more active, but also that the economic entities continue to commit violations. “Selling sausage, cheese, fruit and vegetables near bio toilets is outrageous. But these products are sold there because there persons who buy them in those conditions. Until the buyers purchase food products in such places, our fight will not produce results,” he stated.
Angela Chiriac, division head at the National Food Safety Agency, said the European experts who cooperate with the national ones remained bewildered when they found out that the Agency’s inspectors must notify the company of the planned inspection five days beforehand. “This legal provision is incorrect and exaggerated. If we analyze only the figures, we see that the number of violations has decreased. Last year there were recorded 27,000 irregularities, while the figure for the first three months of this year is lower compared with the corresponding period last year,” she stated.
Viorel Parvan, of the Consumer Assistance Center of Centru region, said that over 350 lab analyses were carried out based on the complaints filed to the three sanitary and phytosanitary centers opened in Chisinau, Balti and Cahul within a project financed by East Europe Foundation a year ago. Over 40% of the complaints referred to the sale of spoiled products, about 15% to incorrect sale practices, while the rest to the sale of products with the expired use-by date. Complaints can be submitted online on www.alegesanatos.md.
East Europe Foundation president Sorin Mereacre said Moldova does not have laboratories for testing all the types of suspect products. He called on the authorities to focus more on the safety of people without waiting for support from the development partners.
The press club meeting was held within the project “Harmonization of Moldovan and Georgian sanitary policies with the European legislation”, which is financed by the EU, the Government of Sweden and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. In the framework of this project, East Europe Foundation created and administers a network of three Consumer Assistance Centers.
