Investigate bottled water suppliers

The CCZ, we notice, has taken the first step by doing a survey on the sprouting suppliers. The results could lead to shocking discoveries as the council has noted that most of the suppliers they interviewed could give only vague explanations regarding their sources of the water. The consumer watchdog believes some of them are sourcing it from unsafe water bodies such as dams!

In some cases, the suppliers give untraceable addresses on the packaging. This betrays unethical and even illegal business tendencies, raising the possibility that unscrupulous businesspeople are taking advantage of the faith that consumers have in their products to sell them water that could harm their health.

For all we know, the bottlers and suppliers of mineral water could be conniving to source water from all sorts of unhygienic sources. It may not come as a surprise to find out that some of these traders are actually getting the water from Mukuvisi River and other streams that have become notorious for industrial and sewer pollution.

Thousands of Zimbabweans nationwide are drinking bottled water on a daily basis, especially given the fact that this is our hot season. Ironically they are drinking bottled water because they believe the tap water is unsafe – but in reality they could all be at risk of contracting water-borne diseases.

Also, there is no guarantee that packaging of the water is done under strict conditions. In this regard, we urge the Ministry of Health, municipalities, the Standards Association of Zimbabwe and the police to join hands urgently to map the way forward on how to defuse this ticking time bomb.

There is need to compile a list of the suppliers of the water, track points of sale and visit bottling plants to establish what exactly is taking place. We don’t believe there is any trader who would sell his product on a large scale and still manage to evade detection.

For instance, the wholesalers and retailers they sell to have their traceable details, such as bank account numbers, real addresses and contact numbers. It should be easy for those tasked with the investigations to fish out the culprits and bring them to book.