By M&M

The ban of Velvex Sanitiser has brought to sharp focus the manufacturing standards of Chandaria Industries.

Velvex Sanisiter stood out conspicuously in the list of 30 other sanitizer brands that Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) has ordered to be removed the shelves of supermarkets and shops.

The move by KEBS to ban Velvex could trigger calls from consumers lobbies for a thorough scrutiny of Chandaria’s other consumer hygiene products given that the firm owned by Manu Chandaria and his wife has a huge market share in household hygiene products in Kenya.

Chandaria Industries is one of the top five consumer hygiene products manufacturers in East, and Central Africa. Some of its products include a range of toilet paper brands, soaps, body lotions, detergents aluminum foils and cling films among others.

Apart from Velvex, other sanitizer brands on the ban list included Zoe produced by Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) listed Flame Tree.

But Velvex stood out from the list because its manufacturer is a respected brand that has been named a super brand several times.

Revoking the certification for the sanitizer brands, KEBS noted that the sanitizers failed to meet the minimum requirement of the alcohol content at 60 % v/v among other parameters that must be complied with before the products are certified and issued with the mandatory standardization mark permits and offered for sale.

“The use of none compliant sanitizers would dupe Kenyans into a false sense of security that they have properly sanitized thereby undermining the efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19,” read a statement from KEBS.

“It is against this background that we share with the public the list of substandard or none-compliant sanitizers which have been found not to meet the standard and whose permits have been suspended with immediate effect to enable consumers make informed choices,” says KEBS.