More than half of the water bottling firms in Kenya will be out of business after the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) cracked the whip on rogue manufacturers.
The standards body announced yesterday that it had suspended permits for 368 water bottling companies for what it termed as their failure to comply with quality standards. Currently, there are over 600 water bottling companies licenced by Kebs to manufacture the precious commodity.
Kebs Managing Director Charles Ongwae said that they were forced to read the riot act after they noticed that some firms had re-located from their premises without notifying them. These firms had also not renewed their licences for over a year, and were yet to pay for their licences.
And because they had secretly re-located from their premises their source of water was also not known and as such the water they were selling could not be trusted, said Ongwae adding the move was taken so as to protect consumers.
Speaking to about 400 representatives of water bottling firms, Ongwae said the decision had been taken to safeguard consumers from taking sub-standard bottled water. "They are supposed to stop selling water until they come for certification," said Ongwae. He also sought to clarify that the companies had been shut down, saying that they had simply been suspended.
"There are a lot of companies which claim to be selling mineral water in the market which do not meet the requirements of mineral water," said Ongwae. Bottled water is one of the high-risk products according to Kebs' classification.
However, some manufacturers cried foul describing the action taken by Kebs as 'too drastic'. They asked Kebs to give more time, possibly another six months, to comply with the requirements including paying the requisite fees and getting samples of their water tested.
Ongwae noted that majority of these companies had failed to renew their licences for over a year while some had relocated from premises without notifying the standards body. This left them, Kebs, with no option but to suspend their operations.
"The public deserve to know where they are operating, their sources of water. They are operating with impunity," said Ongwae. The lucrativeness of this business has attracted a lot of players some of them unscrupulous traders who refill tap water into used bottles.
The Kenya Revenue Authority also keeps a list of water bottling companies licenced for excise duty tax. However, its list of licenced excise manufacturers has only 45 companies compared to Kebs' 600 pointing to the existence of so many water bottling firms that are not paying excise duty tax.
However, Ongwae said that the two lists would soon be reconciled as the two bodies have started working together. Bottled water would also soon be required to have a local version of the secure import standardization mark which would weed out all unscrupulous water manufacturers.
