By Chris Kiwawulo
A city businessman has dragged the Government and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to court for allowing the importation of millions of substandard condoms currently in circulation.
Through his lawyers, Joseph Sseremba served the Attorney General and UNFPA with a notice of intention to sue and demanded that condoms manufactured by five Asian companies be recalled within 45 days from the date he filed the notice (August 17).
Sseremba named Indus Medicare from India and Karex Industries from Malaysia to have supplied the condoms. Other companies are Guilin Latex Factory, Qingdao Double Butterfly Group and Tianjin Human care Latex Corporation; all from China.
In the notice, Sseremba said many of the condoms in circulation are substandard and do not meet the acceptable quality level set by the Uganda National Bureau of Standards.
He said the condoms have a bad odour, do not have a manufacturer’s name for traceability, while others are improperly labelled and packaged.
“The consumer packages do not contain information in at least one of the official languages of the country of destination, if possible supplemented by pictorial representations of the major steps involved in proper condom use,” the notice reads.
Sseremba alleges that the inner boxes of the substandard condoms containing 114 pieces were not constructed of board plasticised on their in-surface and are not of sufficient strength and rigidity to retain their shape through every stage of distribution as required.
A survey at various health facilities, including Mulago Hospital, showed that many of them were still in stock.
The Attorney General, Peter Nyombi, said he could not comment on the matter because he had not seen the notice.
Documents seen by New Vision show that the directorate of civil litigation in the justice and constitutional affairs ministry received the notice on August 17.
On the same day, UNFPA received a copy of the notice. Efforts to get a comment from UNFPA were futile.
The National Drug Authority executive director, Gordon Sematiko, dismissed Sseremba’s claims as lies. “We test every condom that comes into the country. In fact, we have one of the most modern equipment for testing condoms in Sub-Saharan Africa,” he said.
Sematiko, who said they were expecting more three million condoms, revealed that they were preparing a dossier to be sent to the Solicitor General/Attorney General that they will use as evidence to defend the Government in the suit.