themselves down .
The fakes are so good that it is now practically impossible to differentiate them from the genuine except by use of sophisticated electronic footprints . The counterfeiters have honed their expertise and are now able to clone even electronic identification .
Many Kenyans will remember when the mobile companies tried to enforce customer loyalty by pegging special offers to blocked phones . Soon there were advertisings informing any so inconvenienced Kenyan to go and have their phones unblocked .
The unblocking businesses were legitimate and advertised freely yet they were supporting an illegal action , yet we do not recall ever hearing of a prosecution as a result of their contribution to promote illegitimate behavior .
Anybody going to buy spare parts on Kirinyaga road in Nairobi is used to the standard question ‘ unataka genuine ama Taiwan ?’ This is not done in hush tones but as a legitimate option being offered over the counter to choose between the genuine and fake , price being the determinant .
Today in Kenya there is no car part for any model of a car that does not have a fake equivalent . The fakes are of such high quality that sometimes only time can help one determine if what one bought was genuine or not .
We , as Kenyans , long resigned to the fact that fakes will always be in our lives . What we had not bargained for is that this innocuous culture would spread to areas that would soon begin to threaten our lives .
Fake goods have found their way into the manufacture of gas cylinders and the government , working with the oil majors , has so far failed in its
‘‘ However what shook the country is the shocking realization that we may have an entire generation that has had a fake education . This alarming state of affairs has been achieved by a well-coordinated cooperation between parents and teachers .’’
effort to warn consumers not to deal with fake cylinders .
The frequent and devastating fires that break out in slum areas have been linked to defective cylinders that find their way into the market from illegal manufacturers . The copies are so good that it is sometimes hard to tell the fake from the genuine .
The parallel manufacturing and illegal filling points are in full production and mushroom at a faster speed than they are closed down . What is noteworthy is the lack of prosecutions for these purveyors of dangerous goods .
Still in the oil industry , Kenyans are familiar and used to being supplied with adulterated fuel , this is when cheap kerosene is mixed with petrol and sold as petrol to make extra margins . There has been a long fight over this practice .
The practice not only destroys engines and contributes to abnormal emissions into the atmosphere but it also makes the fuel unstable and prone to catching fire . But the practice goes on despite the inherent risks .
Kenyans are treated to a half-hearted control of this illegal trade by occasionally reading in the newspaper those petrol stations that have been closed for selling adulterated fuel . The government simply has no capacity to monitor the vice .
It is however in the food and drink industry that the prevalence of fakes is very worrying . A fake battery will either spoil a gadget of have a short lifespan but fake good that end up being ingested pose a risk to life .
Some of you may remember a scandal that took place in Nairobi a few decades ago when some unscrupulous council workers decided to treat our drinking water with chalk rather than chlorine and the health problems that ensued .
Ochieng grew up drinking tap water and there was never a doubt on its palatability . The incidence above put paid to the trust we had in council water and it spawned a billion shillings bottled water industry that was really unnecessary .
The irony of this new business is that there are so many fakes in the market and the majority of the bottled water is simply tap water put into bottles and sold for a premium . We are therefore simply buying the same tap water we are avoiding in buying bottled water .
There is a whole food packaging industry that specializes in fake sachet goods in Nairobi ’ s Kariobangi area which includes food additives like royko and cooking oils . Their investment is in packaging , what goes into the sachets only God knows .
But it is in the pharmaceutical industry that the fake products have taken root in an alarming manner