Joseph Mwamunyange
22 January 2008
A new law giving powers to Tanzania's Fair Competition Commission to take action against dealers of counterfeit goods will come into force this year.
The new regulations, which will empower FCC officers to raid suspected retail shops and impound and confiscate counterfeit goods, will be applied in Tanzania mainland to curb the increasing influx of imported fake goods.
The FCC is currently only allowed to impound counterfeit goods at the point of entry, in most cases the ports.
The director general of FCC, Geoffrey Mkocha, told The EastAfrican the new law was passed by parliament and signed into law by President Jakaya Kikwete at the end of December last year.
Mr Mkocha said that technically, the law has come into force but the Attorney General has to publish it in the Government Gazette.
Even though the FCC has been waging an unrelenting war against retailers of fake goods, there are provisions in the law that hamper the crusade. The FCC has been pushing for an amendment of these statutes.
The legal framework for fighting counterfeits in Tanzania is the Merchandise Marks Act, 1963 CAP.85 RE 2002 (formerly CAP.519) as amended in 2004, which makes dealing in counterfeit goods a criminal offence.
The Merchandise Marks Act, 1963, which came into force on April 15, 2005 - 42 years after its enactment - is an old law and thus, not surprisingly, deficient.
Mr Mkocha said the Act has been found to have loopholes in two particular areas.
"The first is that in accordance with the Act, the person who is vested with the task of carrying out the functions specified by the Act is only defined under Section 2(1) of the Act, but his powers are not established expressly in the Act."
The Act further states: "Such person known as The Inspector cannot under the existing provisions enter any privately owned premises suspected to contain counterfeits until he first obtains a warrant from a magistrate for every premise the inspector suspects to harbour counterfeits."
Mr Mkocha said this arrangement did not effectively promote the anti-counterfeit fight.
He added that the Act did not have a section authorising the making of regulations as and when the need arose for better implementation of the law as is normal in Acts passed by subsequent parliaments or by the current parliament.
"Notwithstanding the shortfalls, one area where this law is very effective is at points of entry, including ports. Customs laws expressly prohibit entry into the country of goods declared by any other law of the country to be prohibited," he said.
In an effort to rectify these shortcomings, the FCC, in consultation with the Attorney General, forwarded proposals to Parliament for amendment of the Act.
Since last May, when the FCC launched its crackdown on counterfeits, it has destroyed fake goods worth over $200,000.
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