IT is pleasant to hear that the new Board of Directors of Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) has installed a more dynamic management team at TBS, in a quest to improve performance.

At the top, the establishment now has a new Acting Director General. The TBS Board has express instructions from the Minister for Industries and Trade, Dr Abdallah Kigoda, to clear the existing administrative mess inside TBS in six months. The disbanded management team has been blamed roundly for failing to tackle fake imports.

The management's weakness has virtually allowed opportunists to shunt into the country a lot of fake goods, a situation that has turned Tanzania into a dumping ground. It is our hope that the new board and the new management will turn the situation around.

Dr Kigoda wants the board to confront the manufacturers and importers of counterfeit and fake products without delay. They must be stopped in their tracks, pronto. Some of the offenders in this ploy are local unlicensed industries that operate clandestinely.

Much to our delight, the new TBS board has, at the outset, shown interest in its arduous work of fighting unscrupulous business people who import fake, substandard or counterfeit products which are economically destructive. The board is ready to work indefatigably.

We expect the new, dynamic TBS establishment to confront, reduce and eventually eliminate all offensive goods whose presence in the local market is a nuisance, to say the very least. Counterfeit goods are, generally, destructive to the economy and highly dangerous to the health of the people.

The wananchi should refrain from buying and using counterfeit medical drugs, creams, lotions, deodorants and other cosmetics. Most of these products pack a powerful punch on health and some can lead to impairment or even an early grave.

The list of fake or substandard goods on the local market is difficult to close. It is long and keeps growing. Counterfeit milk products, for example, endanger children, often causing diarrhoea. It has also been determined that counterfeited flour is poisonous. Unwitting buyers often consume it much to their peril. This is unacceptable.