They are all over our streets. They are in our malls and even in our homes. We have all encountered them at some point in our lifetime: shoddy and counterfeit goods.

Sub-standard or imitation goods are most commonly found in electronics: memory cards, flash disks, card readers, and computer equipment. These items often do not live up to the claims on their packaging, and sometimes do not even work at all.

Often, these products look perfectly legitimate. Customers of such items can use them for days before finding out they have not bought what they intended to.

Street vendors commonly hawk these shoddy products on the street. One vendor, called Abdoul, has two flash disks, one 32GB and another 8GB, looking for potential customers near Kigali city tower. He approached me, and offered the 32GB flash disk for Frw 12,000, but was clearly willing to bargain.

"There are individual effects that we cannot inspect. Some of these materials are even brought in pockets and that cannot be easily monitored."

When I tried to persuade him to disclose where he had gotten his products from, he refused to disclose his supplier.

One customer, Patrick Mvuyekure says he unknowingly bought a 32 GB flash disk for Frw 3,000, thinking he got a great deal. He has never been able to get the flash disk to work.

These products are not only sold on the streets, but also in some shops. Customer Agnes Uwayo says she bought a memory card from a small shop in city center that worked for only one week.

However, shop owners maintain that they only sell materials that fit with national standards. "What we sell to our customers is what we are sure is good to use," claims one shopkeeper.

The larger problem, rather than why these shops and vendors sell these goods, is how they were allowed into the country in the first place.

Philip Nzaire, the director of quality assurance in the Rwanda Bureau of Standards (RBS), says that there are measures to scrutinize the quality of electronic goods, as well as other products, before they reach the market to ensure that they abide by the standards set proper use.

However, he admits that some products still fall through the cracks and fail to reach inspection.

While all commercial goods are inspected for their quality assurance before they can be sold, some items may enter the country as non-commercial goods, therefore evading inspection.

"There are individual effects that we cannot inspect. Some of these materials are even brought in pockets and that cannot be easily monitored," he said, noting that there is still lack of legal provision on how to regulate these small things.

In line with protecting the customer, Nzaire warns people not to be attracted by too-low prices. "Most of these fake materials are very cheap. We should not be tempted by the low price to buy them," he concluded.