CAIRO: Al-Fardous water company is planning to file a lawsuit against the Ministry of Trade and Industry for claiming the factory's 19-liter water containers are noncompliant with set standards, Ismail Idris, general manager of Al-Fardous' factory, told Daily News Egypt. It was reported that Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid called on the attorney general to launch an investigation into four water companies - Aqua Siwa, Aqua Luxor, Fodata and Al-Fardous - for not meeting health standards. Rachid also urged other water companies to use the best scientific techniques and equipment to guarantee their products' quality. The ministry's investigations have found Aqua Siwa's and Al-Fardous' 19-liter containers, Fodata's 1-liter and 0.5-liter bottles, and Aqua Luxor 20-liter containers all to be noncompliant. The Ministry of Trade and Industry has conducted tests on about 20 samples from different water companies in the Ministry of Health labs. Idris said that it is "strange that the ministry finds the company's bottles size 19-liter noncompliant while all the other bottle sizes are fine, although the source of the water put in all bottles is the same. Idris added that Al-Fardous produces 0.75-liter, 1.5-liter and 6-liter water bottles, and there was nothing wrong with them. The factory has not stopped its production line, he said, but "there is no demand for the 19-liter sized containers due to these accusations. Idris suspects that there were problems with the plastic of the bottles in the samples tested by the ministry, which is the responsibility of the plastic company not Al-Fardous. "We have nothing to do with the plastic. We are only in charge of providing water, Idris added. About a month ago, Rachid announced that six brands of bottled water in the local market were found to be noncompliant, according to results of a study conducted by the Consumer Protection Authority on 21 different brands. Samples from 1.5-liter bottled water found only 13 brands to be pure, complying with set standards: Aqua, Nestle, Aqua Siwa, Mineral, Dasani, Siwa, Aquafina, Baraka, Al-Manar, Delta, Meyah, Aquamina, and Nahel.Al-Nada and Schweppes did not meet standards. Despite the good test results of Baraka, Al-Manar, Delta, Meyah, Aquamina and Nahel, the information in the composition tables on these bottle labels were found to be incorrect. As for the larger bottles, both Nestle and Saway complied with set standards while Nahel, Aquamina, Aquastone and Al-Hayat did not. According to the ministry's press release at the time, Rachid formed a special committee of members from the police and industrial authorities along with representatives from the Consumer Protection Authority to visit these factories for surprise inspections. Moreover, the study found that bottled water in the Egyptian market is not mineral, and that the source of all bottled water is natural wells. Companies get their water from wells that are not at the appropriate depth, nor are they located in the appropriate environment to guarantee the purity of water. The revealing study was conducted over two months by the Consumer Protection Authority, which was formed last year with members of NGOs and other civil societies
