KUWAIT CITY, Aug 25: A local merchant, who also happens to be the only agent of a well-known Saudi meat company, has been allegedly selling spoilt buffalo meat in the local market, reports Al-Shahed daily.
Sources say as per the deal between the merchant and the Saudi company, he had to market a certain quantity of meat in Kuwait. The meat which arrives from Saudi had to be sold within three days and whatever is left had to be collected from stores and destroyed as it would not be safe for consumption after a three-day period. The merchant, however, did not destroy the leftover meat and instead sold it to restaurants, butchers and cooperative societies while knowing very well that it was not fit for consumption.

The merchant employed other such illegal and unethical means to make himself richer. Sources say he used to import a large quantity of frozen buffalo meat from India and got it repacked to make it look like it is fresh meat imported from Saudi Arabia.

The merchant allegedly paid huge salaries to the comptrollers of the Saudi company to ensure their loyalty. Fortunately, however, one of the merchant’s competitors noticed that the meat which was imported from Saudi looked different from the one the merchant was selling and got a sample tested. He discovered that the meat was spoilt and this led to the discovery of the malpractices of the person.

Meanwhile, inspectors confiscated over two tons of fish from the Fish Market in Mubarakiya. During a surprise inspection, inspectors noticed that traders were stocking the fish in order to increase their prices, reports Al-Watan Arabic daily.

Assistant Undersecretary for Commercial Surveillance Affairs at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry Abdullah Al-Ari said surveillance operations revealed that some traders received a huge quantity of fish on Aug 21, but they deliberately hid half the quantity in order to control the market and reduce the amount of fish available in the market.

He added that such inspection campaigns will continue and that all law violators will be referred to authorities.