The Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) says it is concerned that several brands of safety matches and cigarettes that are in breach of their respective standards are still being sold to the public.

In a press release the GNBS said after conducting several surveillance exercises particularly in the East Berbice area, its inspectors found that vendors and shopkeepers are continuing to offer for sale inadequately labelled and poor quality safety matches and cigarettes. Inspectors seized 147 packets of Grayburn matches, 17 packets of Volcano matches and two packets of Rich matches that failed to comply with the National Standard GYS 28:2006 “Specification for safety matches.”

In some cases the labels of the matches seized lacked key information such as the name and address of the manufacturer, importer or distributor, the country of origin and cautionary warning statements such as “Keep out of the reach of children”. It also lacked precautions to be taken by users of the product. The GNBS also said previous tests conducted on some of the matches failed to meet inspection and test requirements.

In addition eight cartons of BT Cigarettes were seized since they contravened the standard “Specification for the Labelling of Commodities – Labelling of Cigarettes (GYS 9-3:2004)” standard.

The label of this brand of cigarette failed to indicate the name and address of the manufacturers.
The GNBS said “These substandard commodities were being sold despite numerous seizure exercises and continuous appeal ….to discontinue [their] sale and purchase.” Further, it said some of these commodities were smuggled from Suriname where they had been banned from being sold to consumers. As a result the GNBS advises consumers not to purchase these products.

Meanwhile, importers, retailers and distributors who continue to flout the laws by offering these substandard products for sale will have their goods seized and destroyed and are likely to face prosecution, the release said.