Rwanda Bureau of Standards (RBS) has confiscated 71 weighing scales on second day of the on going crackdown operation. The exercise is aimed at dealing with traders who temper with scales to cheat customers.

"We are done with Kicukiro and Kimoroko markets and we have managed to seize 71 weighing scales that have no RBS approval,” the Director of Mass Measurement RBS, Eric Karamuzi, said during an interview with The New Times.

"The exercise is going on well, there are those traders who understand our good intentions and those who don’t understand the good of the operation,” he added.

According to Karamuzi, "small scale vendors are the ones with complaints and they try to hide their scales from us but the market chiefs are doing a very good job by helping us crack down the culprits.” He added that small scale vendors are complaining that they don’t have money to buy the recommended weighing scales.

Vendors were given over two months to get rid of the substandard scales and purchase RBS approved scales.

"The scales are already on market and we even give one vendor some samples to start selling them,” Karamuzi explained.

The clampdown on dodgy traders with weighing scales that do not meet proper standards is still going on. After Zinia Market the exercise will proceed to Gikondo.

"We are not done yet, the exercise will continue to Nyamirambo, Kimisagara and it will be carried out countrywide,” he said. 

Florence Nyinawumuntu, one of the vendors in Zinia market, complained that RBS is interfering with the vendors’ rights.

"They are interfering with our rights, how do they expect someone like me and many others to buy a scale of Rwf65,000 which is almost the total investment you put in the little business,” she said with total disappointment.

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