Counterfeiting: Revising Combat Strategies!

Counterfeiting might not be a new practice in Cameroon anymore. Looking at the height and depth of the destroyer over the years, the path it is taking calls for serious reflection, quick and efficient action. In fact, reproducing, imitating, total or partial use of an intellectual property right without the authorization of its owner to produce what resembles the original brand, as the practice is known, is as old as demand and supply. Almost all societies experience it differently depending on the nature of their markets, the purchasing power of consumers, the control mechanism in place and more, their efficiency in taming the ill.
It was generally known; regrettably though, that unscrupulous individuals driven by the dangerous get-rich-quick syndrome were imitating some products and producing below-level ones for naïve population, who, pushed by the weak purchasing power, settled for anything they can afford at a given time caring less about the quality. Now, the fraudsters are gradually stepping up the evil game and risking irreplaceable human life very badly.
Palm or raffia wine which some call “Matango” or “Mbuh” is generally known to be liquid extracted from palm or raffia trees widely consumed across the country. Besides the population’s increasing interest in the drink which some see as natural and better for health than the locally brewed or imported wins and liquors, palm or raffia wine is equally an important item in most traditional rites. Visibly, it’s almost an all-encompassing drink.
Many who know how this drink is extracted were therefore taken aback when news broke out some days ago that a malicious network specialised in fabricating a concoction from cassava and distributing in huge quantities for retail in various neighbourhoods to available buyers in the name of palm and raffia wine were apprehended in Yaounde and kept under gendarmerie custody. The story goes that some regular consumers of the cassava-made palm wine complained of the level of its alcoholism and forces of law and order were contacted to carry out an investigation. They are reported to have traced the supply chain to a factory of the over 20-year-old practice in Nkolkoumou, near Nkolbisson where they uncovered the raw materials used in fabricating the drink. Sugar, bags of dried cassava and other chemical components used to give the adulterated drink a flavour similar to wine made from the trunks of palm trees are said to have been found on site in huge quantities.  
God alone knows the toxicity of the drink and what its victims have gone through following the many years of consuming the dangerous substance. With such practices where many are ready to do just anything (the bad even the ugly), provided money gets into their wallets, how then can society not be experiencing the many abnormal diseases that are claiming precious human lives nowadays! Strange diseases are common in contemporary times with cancers of all sorts ruining lives here and there. Inasmuch as experts are yet to identify the real causes of unfortunate twists of events that greatly reduce the country’s strong development tool – human resources, the powers that be certainly need to rise up and act fastest against dangerous but surging attitudes that have the tendency to destroy human life such as counterfeiting. 
This is ingenuity in the wrong direction. Producing wine from fermented cassava and calling it palm wine is deceptive. The chemicals used, the procedure and environment as well as the concoction no doubt give money to criminals, but have risky effects on human life. Some of these might not even have speedy effects, but its long-term consequences could be disastrous.
The palm wine saga is just one among the myriad of illegal trade, fraud and counterfeit goods that continue to thrive in our local markets. A few months ago, the media was awash with hair-scratching news of market women using dangerous chemicals; some of which are reserved for the conservation of corpses in mortuaries, to precipitate the ripening of bananas, plantains, and fruits of all sorts. Some noise was made then and the story died a natural death thereafter. To say the perpetrators of the bad practices abandoned it simply because of the administrative barking might be too good to be true. The production, importation and sale of contraband goods and counterfeit products such as hydrocarbons, cement, whiskey, cigarettes, cosmetics, beer and other beverages is stifling local production. A Minister once told an audience in the nation’s capital during the commemoration of Intellectual Property Rights Day that over 80 per cent of products on Cameroon’s markets were either counterfeit or contraband. With growing technology, which many are rather us...