Credible Investments Limited (CIL), a cigarette manufacturing company, has refuted sentiments by the Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives (CDEDI) that the company sells expired, illegal and counterfeit products.
On Thursday last week, CDEDI organised a conference where among others it said that the company evades taxes and employs illegal immigrants.
According to a press statement released on Tuesday that The Atlas Malawi has seen and signed by the company claims what CDEDI said is malicious and very unfortunate.
Abbas said the company’s products are certified by the Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS) who continuously monitor and inspect the factory and products by their regulatory mandate.
“There is no truth in what CDEDI’s said. Their remarks have a negative outcome on our products and we don’t know why they did it,” reads part of the statement.
CIL is a company registered under the laws of Malawi and licensed to produce Caesar Cigarettes since March 2022.
Caesar Cigarettes are manufactured and packaged at the company’s factory at Njewa in Lilongwe.
CIL’s parent company is registered in the Republic of South Africa and also supplies Caesar Cigarettes to countries including Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa and the DRC.
Last week, CDEDI accused the Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA), Competition and Fair Trading Commission (CFTC), and Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS) of failing to take action on CIL, formerly known as Best Distribution Limited, for allegedly breaking the law by producing expired materials posing a danger to people’s lives.
Cdedi Executive Director, Sylvester Namiwa told journalists during a press briefing in Lilongwe, that according to their investigations, findings linked to the company indicate that it has been producing Ceasar Red and Viking Red cigarettes without the tax stamp and expiry date with low- price bait to make the products sell as hot cakes to consumers.
Namiwa said a brick containing Ten packets of Ceasar Red Cigarette pegged at K9,500, the company has been selling it at K6,000 allowing a retailer to make a profit of K3, 500 thereby attracting distributors and retailers to patronize the cigarettes.
He has also established that the company was importing and distributing Cigarettes, mostly from Zambia and South Africa, contrary to MRA’s exercise tax stamps regulation.
“Given the above, Cdedi invoked the Access to Information (ATI) Act and on March 2, 2024, wrote the MRA demanding justification on why this company is allowed to do as it pleases on the local market. We demanded disclosure on Value-Added Tax (VAT) duplicate receipts after it became apparent that the distributors were refusing to issue such receipts despite having machines.
“As we expected, MRA was elusive in its response dated March 25, 2024, under the guise of taxpayers and personal information confidentiality,” explained Namiwa.
He however claimed that the company uses Malawi Bureau of Standards ( MBS) pre-certification codes whose information traces to South Africa.
