DOHA: The Ministry of Economy and Commerce recently launched crackdowns on outlets selling saffron and took some 32 samples of the expensive product for laboratory tests to confirm if they were genuine. The ministry said that quality tests on all the samples have confirmed that the products were genuine and complied with the GCC’s quality standards.
The Ministry of Economy and Commerce gave the title of the GCC Standards and Specifications as GSO ISO 3632-1-2007. This is not the first time the ministry has conducted raids on saffron sellers in the country. Meanwhile, last February, they caught 88 cases of violations against the consumer protection law (of 2008) in clampdowns launched in the month.
The violations included breach of rules such as not announcing the prices of products or services, selling items whose validity had expire, not writing prices in Arabic, false information about products and charging more than the actual price of items, among other things. Such inspection drives, the ministry said, aim to monitor prices and catch erring outlets to protect the rights of consumers.
As punishment, an errant outlet can be closed temporarily or be fined between QR5,000 and QR30,000 as per the provisions of the law, which is enforced by the Consumer Protection Department (CPD) of the Ministry, Qatar News Agency (QNA) reports. The crackdown on commercial outlets will continue and the erring outlets will be booked and referred for legal action.
The Peninsula
