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Starr News has uncovered a provision shop in Koforidua selling expired soft drinks to innocent School Children.
The Shop is located close to a Private School at Two–Streams, a suburb of the New Juaben Municipality, Eastern Region, therefore highly patronized by the pupils.
A label on the product -“Dada New Star Fruit Juice” – in question which comes in different flavours indicate the product expired in November 2019, however, the expired date has been deliberately covered with black ink to outwit unsuspecting customers mostly the vulnerable School children.
A week-long surveillance by Starr News noticed that the strategic exposure and marketing of the product to the pupils lead to high patronage in addition to the reduction in the price of the product.
The owner of the shop told disguised Starr News correspondent Kojo Ansah who bought the product on two separate times that, she buys the product from a shop at the Koforidua Taxi Rank.
However, the owner of the said shop did not have any such product when visited by the reporter in an attempt to buy in large quantities.
The reporter reported the incident to the Food and Drugs Authority, FDA, with a sample of the product. On Tuesday, February 4, 2020; a team from the Authority stormed the shop to retrieve all the expired products and summoned the owner of the shop to its office to assist in the investigation.
The shop owner has reportedly denied altering the expired date on the product. The FDA is, however, investigating the matter to establish whether or not there is the involvement of a cartel selling the expired product to unsuspecting customers.
Also, the Authority has mounted surveillance on the market in an attempt to identify more shops selling the products, if any.
New Star Drink, Dada Fruit Juice and Dada Delicious Juice are Products of Dada Foods, a Chinese Fruit Juice Manufacturing company. The Company was in the news in October 2019 when three top Managers of the company – Yuh Qiug Yuh, operations Manager, Wang Zhong, General Manager and Rose Chen a sales girl were arrested by the Ghana Revenue Authority for evading tax and falsifying Value Added Tax invoice.
The Eastern regional Capital, Koforidua, is becoming notorious for sale of expired products. In December 2019, the Municipal Chief Executive for New Juaben, Isaac Apau Gyasi, cautioned traders to desist from the practice since it could be life-threatening to unsuspecting consumers.
This was after the Environmental Health Department of the Assembly seized large quantities of expired products from shops and hawkers in the Municipality.
