Merchants battle over bleach
For those viewers, primarily male, who may not be acquainted with the miraculous multi-purpose uses of the product known as bleach, this next story may be a revelation. Apparently bleach is used for washing clothes, removing stains, disinfecting, mopping, cleaning, purifying water and even taking the tarnish off silverware. It’s sale is so profitable that one band of merchants is up in arms over what they believe is an unfair monopoly.
Ann-Marie Williams
A group of company managers and workers who sell Clo-rex bleach picketed the Belize City offices of the Prime Minister this morning in an effort to drum up public support for ending government’s ban on the importation of bleach. They say the ban costs them jobs and the public plenty of money.
Hubert Broaster, Manager, Chlorate Co.
“I use to pay all my bills, my workers. My workers don’t have any work, so I don’t see the reason why they have to kill the small businessman like me.”
Ismael Reyes, Picketer
“I have already laid off four workers and only because the company is among four brothers why it’s surviving. But right now we have debts to pay and it’s not that we don’t want to pay it, but the situation is very difficult right now. We have already used another chemical that is used to make the same product, but it is not working quite well right now.”
According to Arturo Matus, Director of Matus Bros., government banned the importation because Matus produces the product locally at his Belize City factory.
Arturo Matus, Director, Matus Bros.
“It took me twenty years to get the technology to produce sodium hypochloride, and I can proudly say that it is the only sodium hypochloride in the region that retains its chlorine in the solution. Nobody in the region has the technology, Mexico especially, to have the chlorine to be retained in the solution. We have that technology. This was given to us by an American company, who promised us that this secret should never be divulged.”
Hubert Broaster who manages Chlorinate Company, says ten of his employees are out of a job since they can no longer buy the chemical and mix it with water to make their bleach.
Hubert Broaster
“We packet mostly the bags, Mr. Reyes does the bag also, bottles, gallons. The government talks about helping local businesses, but they are not helping local businesses, they’re destroying it. I’m doing this for about twelve years and we don’t get any help. Big companies get help, small, local companies don’t get any help.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“Why is it that they have to buy it from you? They are also saying that you claim to manufacture it locally, when in actual fact you import it.”
Arturo Matus
“If they can prove that I import sodium hypochloride, then they have a case. But they cannot prove it.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“You manufacture it locally?”
Arturo Matus
“Yes. And the evidence is at the Customs. We have been importing chlorine gas for the past nineteen years or so, and we have been importing sodium hydroxide, which is caustic soda or lye, for the past nineteen years, and we have been producing it.”
Eneyda Perera, Manager, Aroma Detergents Co.
“Personally in my company, I use up twenty-six thousand litres of the raw material for a month, and he can only give me twelve drums, which is two thousand, four hundred litres. That will finish in three or fours days and that is not only for me. We have seven other factories, we have Femagra, Sunshine, New Era, Broaster, Cuellos. We have seven factories in all that personally he cannot supply.”
“I have a concession with the government, and it won’t be up until April, and the government stopped me last year November from bringing the sodium hypochloride, which they are claiming that they have a factory. But up to now, not one media has seen this factory. Mr. Matus does not have the facility, he does not have the equipment, the delivery trucks, not even the drums to sell it to us. The next thing is with Mr. Matus, one of our manufacturer tried his material, and he charged us one hundred and forty-one dollars and forty-four cents for thirty-four gallons, when in fact we bring it from Mexico, it only cost us sixty dollars.”
Hubert Broaster
“They say that they have a factory that manufacturers sodium hypochloride here in Belize, but I don’t see any. If they have one, we can buy from them for sure. If they can show us the company that can produce the amount of sodium hypochloride for Belize, for me, Mr. Perez, Mrs. Perera, Mr. Hernandez, we can buy.”
Matus says he’s ready to sell if they want to buy.
Arturo Matus
“Our plant has two systems. If we put both systems to work, each produce twenty-four, fifty-five gallon drums per day. If we put the two systems for work continuously, in thirty days we would have seven hundred and twenty barrels of sodium hypochloride at ten percent concentrate, more than enough this country can ever dream to consume.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“Where’s the plant?”
Arturo Matus
“On the Northern Highway.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“They are saying too that there’s no plant.”
Arturo Matus
“I am working under American supervision, and these people have told me for security purposes, they don’t want anyone to go around.”
In the meantime, Perera is hoping government will give them the go ahead to import sodium hypochloride. Ann-Marie Williams for News 5.
In a textbook example of what could only be described as marketing savvy, the various purveyors of diluted sodium hypochloride have chosen to name their products Clorex, Clorax and Chlorix. The original brand, which is the top seller in the United States, is named… Clorox.
