A nasty kick for Bata over poor-quality shoes

Bata Shoe Company 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.

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.

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.

[crp]