Flour Weevil Scandal Rocks F/Town Pie City
Chakalisa Dube | Monday August 31, 2020 14:48
The company has, however, denied such claims by various sources that it used flour infested with white worms at its factory located at the Francistown Light Industrial Area. The company’s denial is anchored upon its strong mechanisms that regularly ensure that it uses quality raw materials for its products.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources close to this publication claimed that on August 15 and 16, 2020 some of the employees at Pie City were ‘forced’ by their superiors to bake bread using flour that was infested with worms.
In a leaked video purportedly taken at the facility on August 15 employees can be heard claiming that they have been forced to use flour that was infested with white worms. Sources have said the motive for allegedly using the contaminated flour still remains unknown.
“Matshelo a batho a mo diphatseng bagaetsho. E gorogile corona mo Pie City bagaetso. E tswa mo dikgetsing. (The lives of the people are at risk. Corona has now reached Pie City. It is inside the flour bags),” said one of the employees (in Saturday’s video) who claimed to be mixing flour purportedly infested with worms. In the video he refers to the alleged worms as the corona pandemic.
In another video allegedly shot on August 16 one of the employees said, “Seime ye le yone e nale diboko e ntseng e tswa gone fa. Matshelo a Batswana a mo diphatseng. Ga ba kake ba neelwa marotho a a nang le diboko gotwe ba je). (The flour we have just mixed is also infested with worms. The lives of Batswana are at risk. It is unfair for them to be fed with bread that is infested with worms).”
The Monitor is also in possession of some pictures of employees claiming to be using the allegedly contaminated flour.
The Monitor sources claim that on August 15, 2020, just past 11am upon realisation the brown flour was infested with worms, the company’s operations director Paul Maas instructed staff to sieve it (flour) in a bid to remove the worms.
He is said to have then ordered staff to continue using the sieved flour to bake bread.
In addition, there are claims that upon establishing that the strategy to sieve the flour was not effective, one of the senior employees at Pie City (name known to this publication), instructed staff to continue using the contaminated flour without sieving it.
The employee is purported to have told staff that clients will not easily tell that the flour found to be infested with worms was baked.
The sources have alleged that three bags had already been mixed when it was discovered that there was flour infested with worms. The position of some key sources is that the bread from the aforementioned mixes could also have been condemned as a precaution but that was not done.
The argument from insiders is that the mixes of flour came from flour bags that were on the same pallet where contaminated flour was discovered.
In total, it has been claimed that there were 20, (50kg) brown flour bags on the pallet where the flour that had worms was discovered. Insiders at Pie City allege that from the pallet, a total of five bags that were allegedly contaminated were reportedly used for baking on August 15 and 16, 2020.
In total, they say eight bags from the pallet were used and these include the three that had already been mixed prior to the discovery of the contaminated bags of flour.
In addition, sources allege that around 30 flour mixes (for baking bread) were done on Saturday and 28 the next day, Sunday.
“Only around 18 mixes (for baking) were done before confirmation of the contaminated flour. The rest of the mixes on Saturday (15th) and Sunday (16th) were from the contaminated flour,” one of the insiders at Pie City alleged.
The staff members were allegedly stopped from using the contaminated flour on Sunday afternoon because they had produced ‘excessively low quality bread’ (which was allegedly attributable to the contaminated flour).
Twelve bags (from the pallet) that were also found to have been contaminated were then put aside, sources said.
There are indications from sources that Selolwe Junior School and Haskins are amongst the entities that received bread allegedly produced on August 15 and 16.
Sources have also claimed that one of the employees who the company suspected might have been directly responsible for reporting the alleged use of contaminated flour to the Francistown City Council (FCC) has since had his contract terminated.
The company reportedly wrote to the employee terminating the contract on August 19, two days after FCC officials visited the facility.
He was on a contract that was being renewed monthly. An employee in the stores department also allegedly had his contract terminated for reportedly telling the council officials (during their visit to Pie City factory) that part of the contaminated flour was used to bake bread on the 15th and 16th.
Lopang Pule, the FCC town clerk, confirmed that the council visited Pie City on August 17 following a tip-off that contaminated flour might have been used to bake the bread.
“I can confirm that on Thursday 20th August we removed 12 (50 kg) flour bags from Pie City. We initially went to Pie City on Monday (August 17), but we did not remove the flour bags as the company said it wanted to liaise with the supplier (Bokomo Milling).”
Pule said FCC cannot authenticate that Pie City might have used contaminated flour. He added that FCC issued condemnation certificates for the flour bags they removed from Pie City.
On Friday, Pie City Botswana operations director Maas, strongly dismissed reports that the company might have used flour that was infested with worms to bake bread.
Maas gave a timeline of what he said transpired. He explained that on August 15, flour that was contaminated was reported to the acting manager , one Begane at ‘11:37 am and all operations were stopped while the flour was being examined.
“He (Begane) found that flour had been poured into the mixing bowl and that on further inspection he did find small white worms, and immediately asked the staff member doing the mixing to remove all the flour from the mixing bowl and it was placed into the flour bag and closed. Mr. Begane and Mr. Mogorosi (a senior employee at Pie City) then investigated the other bags of flour and they realised that after opening three to four bags that the batch numbers that started with number 14 were more than likely all contaminated and they removed all bags that had tickets indicating the batch number 147 and had expiry dates of 8-14 Jan 2021 on them.”
Maas said the staff doing the mixing was questioned as to whether they had used the flour or any other flour and they said ‘no’ they had not.
He said 11 bags were initially found contaminated and the 12th bag was discovered later. According to him the bags that were contaminated were placed against the back wall of the stores and the staff were told not to use the flour. “They then opened bags of flour that started with the batch number 271 and expiry date of 23 Jan 2021 and found them to be free of any weevils/worms.”
Maas said on the morning of August 17 the supplier of the flour, Bokomo Milling arranged for two of its workers to inspect the contaminated flour.
The two inspectors confirmed that the flour was contaminated and would be replaced, according to Maas. The Monitor has confirmed that 12 bags of flour have been replaced.
Maas said that to his shock, late afternoon (August 17) three inspectors from the city council arrived and walked into the factory. He said they did not say why they were at the factory and proceeded to the pie-making department that had finished working.
“One of the inspectors started looking into the white drum containing the flour and asked Mrs. Morapedi (one of the senior employees at Pie City) if she knew what he was looking for. She responded that she did not and then he called the staff and asked who was working on Saturday and they told him they were all at work. The inspector asked if they knew of worms and they replied they did not. He then realised he was in the wrong department and one of the senior employees took them (all three inspectors) to the bread bakery and showed them the contaminated flour that had been removed and placed at the back of the store.”
Maas said the inspector then asked a member of staff who was there, if they had used the flour and where the products were and he responded that they had not used it.
Explained Maas, “The inspector came back to the office and asked me if I knew of the worms and I responded by showing him the ticket numbers (of the contaminated flour) as well as the contact name of the person I had spoken to at Bokomo Milling in Gaborone, I also confirmed that two gentlemen from Bokomo Milling have already inspected the flour and had agreed to replace it. I confirmed that there were 12 bags of 50kg brown flour.”
Added Maas, “My response to the allegations that we used the flour to make bread is a total fabrication as we had 1, 973.75kg of flour in stock and we removed 600kg of flour that was contaminated with worms, we still had over 1,300kg of flour left. We only used 189kg of flour for the Saturday production and on the Sunday (August 16) we only used 179.10kg so there was absolutely no reason to ‘force or threaten staff’ that they would lose their jobs if they did not use the contaminated flour as we clearly had enough stock.”
Despite Maas’ clearly detailed version, circumstances surrounding the video and pictures of employees purporting to be using the contaminated flour remain shrouded in controversy.
He confirmed that some of the employees who allegedly shot the video left the company days after the alleged incident. The employees in question are the storeman and oven man who were amongst those who were on duty on the days of the alleged incident.
Maas also confirmed that the said employees were amongst those spotted through a CCTV camera shooting the video. The oven man and storeman are the ones who sources say the company believes could have raised the alarm about the alleged use of contaminated flour. The other employees who were amongst those shooting the video are still with the company and Maas has confirmed that no action will be taken against them.
Sources maintain that the move to get rid of the storeman and oven man was a purge. However, Maas said the company got rid of the two employees because they were guilty of some irregularities.
“They are amongst those who we have been investigating for sometime,” he said referring to the two expelled employees.
Maas had said to the best of his knowledge some of the sacked employees (particularly those who are amongst those who featured in the video) were not aware that they would be dismissed at the time the video was shot. Despite Maas’ version of events it boggles the mind as to why the employees would go to such extremes of recording a video and taking pictures in the factory?
Maas said, “he can only speculate” about the motive for the video, but maintained that the company is not desperate to make profit to a point it disregards food safety measures.