The recent announcement by the Egyptian Central Association for Consumer Protection (ECACP) that a number of bottled water brands on the Egyptian market do not accord with the Health Ministry specifications for safe drinking water has raised a furore which has not yet subsided.
An ECACP study on random samples of bottled water in Egypt revealed that only 13 out of the 21 brands on the market complied with the set standards. Six brands were found to carry incorrect product description on their labels, while two did not meet the set standards and could be harmful to health. There are no natural springs in Egypt, the study pointed out, and the companies producing bottled water obtained the water from wells that were not necessarily located in an appropriate environment to guarantee the purity of the water. More often than not the wells were not drilled sufficiently deep; for drinking water to be taken from wells, a well should be deeper than 160m.
Smear campaign
The ECACP announcement, which managed to draw heavy media attention, had the bottled water producers up in arms. The Egyptian Industries Union declared that the ECACP announcement was an unwarranted smear campaign against the bottled water producers since ECACP had no legal right to collect samples from the market, test them and circulate results.
The Food Industry Chamber issued a sharp statement against ECACP. Tareq Tawfiq, head of the Chamber said that ECACP did not comply with the standards and regulations which should be applied upon collecting samples which, he stressed, should be taken directly from the manufacturer. The chamber denounced what it called the defamation campaign against the producers, insisting that it is liable to ruin their reputation on the market. Tawfiq warned against non-reliable testing the results of which, he claimed, “were publicised before the actual analysis of the collected samples”.
Spokesmen of al-Nada and Schweppes companies said the producers suffered high losses following the ECACP announcement. Yet Bassel Samy Saad, manager of Schweppes, assured that his company still operates and that no legal procedures were taken against it since there were no actual violations. Mr Saad cited his company’s 10-year record free of any violations concerning hygiene.
Just as any consumer
An ECACP source who asked for his name to be withheld told Watani that the only parties legally qualified to collect samples for testing are the Supplies Investigation Authority and the Health Ministry. When samples are collected, he said, the producer should be in possession of an identical sample which should furthermore be coded to guarantee the absence of any manipulation, according to the Industrial and Fraud Trade Laws.
Anan Hilal, executive manager of ECACP and deputy head of the Consumer Protection Authority which assigned ECACP with the study in question, said it was natural for companies to fight back once their violations were revealed to the public. She said the CPA had the right to buy products on the market just as any other consumer, the testing committee included an expert from the Food Safety Commission, and that the testing was conducted by the Health Ministry laboratories.