Fake coke and fanta drinks selling at Gweru bus terminus

Gweru

Vendors at Kudzanai Bus Terminus in Gweru are short-changing commuters and members of the public by a diluted drink, popularly known as jolly juice, as fizzy soft drinks.

The unsuspecting members of the public and long distance commuters are made to buy the fake 500ml cokes and fanta for US$1 each.

A Chronicle news crew visited the terminus yesterday and witnessed some vendors busy preparing the fake soft drinks before selling them to unsuspecting customers through windows of long distance buses.

“The fake soft drinks are brewed using a little of the genuine soft drink which they add water mixed with the jolly juice. The preparation of these soft drinks is so fast that some are even mixed within the terminus,” said an ice-cream vendor who operates at the terminus. Some of the vendors at the terminus yesterday admitted that they were selling fake soft drinks prepared using jolly juice.

“Town inoda kungwara murume sezvauri kutoona izvi. Anotengwa zvikuru madrinks aurikuona aya, especially nevanhu vanenge varimumabhazi. (We are in town to make money and this is the reality of things you are witnessing. The soft drinks are selling fast especially among those on board long distance buses),” said one vendor at the terminus. The vendors told this reporter, who was posing as a potential supplier of empty soft drink plastic containers that they either buy or pick the plastic containers they use on the streets.

“We at times pick up the empty plastic containers around this terminus but usually we buy them from street kids who sell them at $1 for 20 empty bottles,” said another vendor.

Some travellers who fell prey to the vendors’ tricks phoned Chronicle’s Gweru offices to express their dismay. They said the vendors should be arrested as the fake soft drinks posed a health hazard.

“What these vendors are doing is not only unfair on the part of the unsuspecting buyers but dangerous. This can be a serious health hazard to us travellers. These drinks are made under very unhygienic circumstances and at times they just pick up the empty bottles on the streets without first cleaning them. This can be highly dangerous to our health,” said Mrs Rosemary Nyathi who was on her way to Bulawayo. Mrs Nyathi said the vendors were at times producing fake Cascade drinks.