By Our Reporter
Asha Batenga, a baker was shocked when she bought rotten margarine from Capital Shoppers Ntinda. Her pleas to get help from management fell on deaf ears as management said it wasn’t their problem but that of the supplier.
A friend to Batenga, Dennis Asiimwe shares the story in full;
“I generally avoid calling out brands online unless I have solid facts. It doesn’t get more solid than this.
A friend of mine and member of this group, Asha Batenga (and proprietor of Cakely) purchased a box of margarine (Marina Fat) from Capital Shoppers, Ntinda. When she opened it up at her premises, she found that the margarine was rotten.
Armed with the rotting margarine, her receipt, her Capital Shoppers card and as much goodwill as a sane human with a pending cake order can muster, she returned to Capital Shoppers. The supervisor on site told her he could NOT change the margarine, even after she showed him her receipt, and asked him to check her card to confirm the batch order.
Said Supervisor then went up to his manager, who, from his perch on a swivel chair, relayed the following message to her: “That is not our problem; the problem is the suppliers.”
The suppliers in this case are Mukwano Industries. Asha was a little confused by the reference, since she was NOT the one dealing with Mukwano Industries, obviously.
She left.
The next day, she went back, asking to speak to the manager directly, instead of through the supervisor; after all, it was highly unlikely that he was God, and the supervisor a priest in uniform.
The manager was blunt. “It is not our fault. And I hear you were threatening action against us. You? As who? Go and check and if you find another box that is spoilt, we will talk.”
So Asha (displaying remarkable patience) went back to the same aisle, and picked THREE more boxes randomly before going to the counter.
Her polite request at the counter? “Please cut the boxes open first, before I pay.”
Strangely enough, the attendant at the counter did so.
ALL THREE RANDOMLY SELECTED BOXES CONTAINED ROTTEN MARGARINE.
Asha went back to the aisle and eventually found two boxes of margarine that were fine. (And in case you are wondering why she kept insisting on that MUKWANO brand, it seems to work well with her cakes, especially it’s texture).
Asha, finally having made a rather rational point, and having shown a level-headedness that few of us can EVEN imagine, left, after paying for the two boxes that were fine.
Facts:
1. Capital Shoppers still REFUSES to refund the money that Asha spent on that original spoilt/rotten/expired box of margarine.
2. Capital Shoppers, Ntinda, is currently selling a batch of rotten margarine, each box of Marina Fat at about Shs. 61,000.
3. Capital Shoppers, Ntinda is currently IGNORING requests for either refunds for said boxes from customers, instead referring them to Mukwano Industries.
4. Capital Shoppers, Ntinda sold to Asha a box of margarine that appears to have had its expiry date tampered with. She is still in possession of that original box of magarine.
There are several ways to look at this: poor customer service in the most deplorable of forms; criminal negligence; fraud; damages in terms of financial loss caused to an individual; negligence that endangers the life/lives of the population by the deliberate sale of tainted foodstuffs; deliberate and cowardly attempts to offload the blame to another party (Mukwano Industries) with whom the aggrieved customer has absolutely no relationship with.
You can take your pick.
In the end, Capital Shoppers, Ntinda is guilty mostly of one primary thing: a level of arrogant stupidity so flawed, it is a modern miracle that it continues to exist as a business.“
