Bata school shoes under probe after consumer protest

Shoe maker Bata has attracted the attention of quality assurance authorities following consumer complaints that its retail outlets sold to parents low quality school shoes that got damaged in the first week of the term, forcing many buyers back to the shops.

The Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) responded to consumer complaints about the quality of Bata school shoes on social media and opened investigations into the matter.

“We picked up on the complaints that some shoppers made last week in regards to Bata shoes. The authority has reached out to them,” Wang’ombe Kariuki, the CAK director-general, said.

If found culpable, the Limuru-based shoemaker could be forced to reimburse customers the full cost of the affected shoes, replace them and recall the entire batch that is found to be substandard.

Bata Kenya, the country’s leading shoe manufacturer, will, however, expose itself to a maximum fine of 10 per cent of its annual revenues if it fails to take the above remedial measures, according to the competition law.

Mr Wang’ombe said he expected quick investigations into the matter especially if the affected consumers respond with speed to assist the authority.

“Ideally, such an investigation should not take too long but primarily depends on the speed at which the complainants respond to our officers,” he said.

Consumer protection law

This is the first time that the competition watchdog is investigating a matter on its own motion — an action that was made possible with last year’s amendment of the consumer protection law that came into effect last Friday.

Upon conducting investigations, the law empowers the CAK to apply several administrative remedies, including ordering a refund to consumers, replacement or repair of goods, withdrawal of misleading representations as well as recall of unsafe goods and notices to the public on existence of such goods.

Bata Kenya management had not responded to questions on the matter at the time of going to press.

Last week, Bata acknowledged shortcomings in some of its shoes on its Facebook and Twitter pages, adding that it had assigned specific quality teams to identify the compromised batche(s).

“Our goal is to maintain our heritage of providing our esteemed customers with good quality products as we have done over the years,” Bata said in a statement, adding that it would “review the production process and streamline it to ensure that this does not occur in future.”

Bata Kenya is a unit of family-owned Bata Shoes company based in Switzerland, a global footwear and accessory manufacturer that also has a presence in Europe and Latin America.

The shoe company has over 130 stores in Kenya, some of which are franchises while others are fully owned. The firm also manages several shops on behalf of owners under profit-sharing agreements.

It also has a presence in Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, South Sudan, Malawi, Namibia and South Africa.

The shoe company last week instructed affected shoppers to visit its outlets and give the attendants the footwear and its purchase receipts for unspecified “assistance.”

The firm has a three-month refund policy which, however, comes with many caveats, including the possession of the original receipt and a requirement that customers must not have tried to make any alterations or repairs to items purchased.

Mr Kariuki now says that whereas the competition watchdog has not concluded its investigations, it had noted the company’s acknowledgement of possible wrongdoing as well as the fact that it had offered to assist the affected customers.

“Compensating shoppers is one of the remedies available. If Bata does not do that, then the authority after conducting investigations can order them to replace the shoes and recall the entire batch from the market,” he said.

Refusal to make good the mistakes means the authority — using the recent amendments to the law — can impose a fine of up to 10 per cent of the company’s revenue.

Changes to the competition law, which came into effect on January 13, now empower the CAK to start investigations into consumer rights violations following complaints.

Prior to that, the authority had to wait for complaints to originate from consumer lobby groups. These groups had first priority to arbitrate such matters before inviting the CAK to get enjoined.

Substandard goods are items that do not meet the scientific specifications set at the manufacturing point and as a result could prove ineffective, defective and, sometimes, dangerous to users.

Such goods may be borne of negligence, human error and deployment of insufficient human as well as production resources mostly to cut costs.

Counterfeit products on the other hand are deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled with respect to their identity or source for purposes of hoodwinking buyers into believing that they are purchasing legitimate goods.