Why City Hall wants to target butcheries and supermarkets
Nairobi City County Government on Monday started a crackdown on unscrupulous traders who have tampered with their weighing machines to steal from consumers.
The inspection is carried out to ensure traders especially butchers, supermarket owners as well as those of gas stations have adjusted their measuring scales as stipulated by the law on measures.
Traders who are found guilty of flouting the law on weights are usually fined Sh500,000 or face a jail term not exceeding one year.
The purpose of the weights and measures law is to safeguard the end user.
A number of traders are usually arrested and prosecuted every year for calibrating their machines.
Machine has to be stamped
Inspector of weights and measures from City Hall started going round the county yesterday to ascertain if the scales of all the licensed traders are standardised.
Every machine has to be stamped at a station the county has designated after it is checked and confirmed to be suitable, a notice issued by the county’s Director of Weights and Measures, A.K Kiruja says.
Traders had earlier been notified of the visits in an advert published in the local dailies last month. The notice said the exercise, which started in Kayole, Embakasi would end on December 15.
The inspectors would be visiting 42 designated stamping stations. After Embakasi they will go to Kasarani, Roysambu, Lang’ata and Kibra sub-counties.
Starehe where City Market is situated would then follow. There have been complaints from Nairobi residents that most of the weighing machines at the facility have been tampered with.
“All traders within a radius of 20 kilometres of the place mentioned are required under the provisions of the Weights and Measures Act to submit all the weighing and measuring instruments, which are in their possession for assising and stamping,” says the circular.