News 

Wednesday, January 24, 2018 

Embrace pre-export verification UNBS tells importers

The Executive Director UNBS Dr. Ben Manyindo

KAMPALA, Uganda--Uganda National Bureau of standard has asked Ugandan importers to comply with the Import regulations which require goods to be inspected for conformity to national standards prior to shipment into the country.

Addressing the media at the Media center in Kampala, the Executive Director UNBS Dr. Ben Manyindo said  Inspecting goods before shipment reduces the cost of doing Business  and also reduces the time which UNBS could have spent Inspecting the goods at the customs.

Manyindo said embracing pre-export verification of conformity (PVoC) by importers helps them to only imports goods that meet the National standard and reduce on incidences of importing substandard good to the country.

, According to Manyindo, the PVoC program has enabled the standards agency to Inspect 4.6 billion products of which 4.2 billion products passed the test and 16 million products failed.

“As a result of UNBS intervention under the PVoC program we were able to stop 16 million substandard products from being imported into the country. Such goods would have otherwise had adverse effects on the health and safety of the Ugandan consumers” He explained.

“Uganda is a net importing country of general goods  which means  that the majority of goods  on the market are imported .Therefore ,its  vital  to Inspect  goods at the entry point to stop dangerous substandard products  from Entering  the market,” Manyindo said.  

 The UNBS boss said some of the goods that failed the test include; 224 second hand motor vehicles and were denied entry into the country. He said such vehicles would have effects on the environment and further compromised the users’ safety.

Manyindo told Journalist that in the last Six months, the standard agency has managed to develop 254 standards mainly to support the implementation of the Buy Uganda Build Uganda Policy and are aimed to enable small and medium enterprises to develop competitive products on the market.

The Agency also developed 43 standards for agro inputs especially those used in fertilizers, storage requirements for fruits, vegetables and meat carcasses.

All those standards will ensure that all goods produced and traded in the country are safe and competitive both in the local and on the international market.

Manyindo further promised that the standard Bureau will continue developing standards that contribute to the competitiveness of local Industries and support economic development for the country through supporting Export growth.

Despite the big Achievement, the agency also faced with some challenges which they want government to address if UNBS is to deliver quality services to the general public. Some of the challenges include among others the limited staff which he said can be only be addressed if government allocates enough resources to UNBS to enable them recruit more technical staffs to man the Institution.  

By SAMUEL NABWIISO, Wednesday, January 24th, 2018