Call to give seized counterfeit goods to those in need

A Consumer group is urging the commerce ministry not to dump thousands of counterfeit goods it has seized in recent years but to give them to the needy instead.“With more and more people needing charitable help to get by, it may be time to change the system so that instead of disposing of items confiscated as part of consumer protection laws they can be given to people in need,” Loucas Aristodemou, the head of the consumers’ and quality of life union said yesterday. Possibly thousands of items are in storage at the commerce ministry – confiscated because they violated consumer protection laws by being counterfeits. An official at the commerce ministry’s competition and consumer protection service Froso Hadjilouca said yesterday those items “have been in storage for some years” and so a meeting had been scheduled for this week to decide how to dispose of them according to waste disposal laws, e.g. separating out recyclables. But she denied a report in daily Phileleftheros last week that said that around 22,000 ounterfeit products, among them shoes, clothes, toys, and cameras would be dumped at Kotsiatis landfill, contravening legislation on waste disposal and recycling. Asked if they could instead donate any safe items to needy families, Hadjilouca said their hands were tied. “It is not that simple. We are bound (by law) to destroy them,” she said. “It is an issue of misleading consumers, they are counterfeit goods,” Hadjilouca said.“The legislation needs to change so that people might be able to use these items,” she added.But Aristodemou suggested that changes could be made to the confiscated goods so that they could be distributed to those in need.“The ministry follows regulations and is only doing its job, but as of this moment there’s a crisis so why not alter the safe items?”He said that minor alterations could be made e.g. removing counterfeit branding or dangerous parts, such as dangling strings in clothes.Aristodemou said that the union was willing to recruit time and volunteers to make any necessary changes with the ministry’s supervision, “as long as the ministry takes the decision”.  “I do not expect it would cost more than it takes to store, transport and destroy these items,” Aristodemou said.A 33-year-old mother of two told the Cyprus Mail she was “shocked” to hear that confiscated items would be destroyed. “It’s upsetting to hear about the growing numbers of people in poverty, who cannot even feed their children. If they can’t feed their children, they can’t provide them with decent clothes,” she said. “While I understand there are laws, surely they could be bent in some way during these difficult times (a reason repeatedly used by politicians to make law amendments, especially austerity-driven).”