UNBS destroys Shs1 billion fake goods in 4 years

UNBS officials load sub-standard goods onto a truck for destruction in Mbale District recently. FILE PHOTO

Kampala- The Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) has destroyed goods worth Shs1b in the past four years over what the agency said was “failure to meet minimum standards”.
Mr David Ebiru, the agency’s deputy executive director in-charge of management and financial services, said this amount of money is equivalent to the millions of Shillings lost by the economy due to fake goods harmful to the public.
According to Mr John Paul Musimami, UNBS deputy executive director compliance, after inspecting 1,090 businesses, 183 consignments worth Shs6b were seized due to failure to meet standards.
The products seized include electric appliances, cosmetics, agriculture inputs, food products, second hand garments, mosquito nets and steel products.

In relation to imports, he revealed, 100,000 goods were inspected and in the last three years, nearly 7,000 non-conforming potentially harmful products were denied entry into Uganda.

Mbale goods
Recently, goods worth Shs595m were destroyed in Mbale.
“This is very unfortunate because some people from the business community get loans to do business but somehow again we have the mandate to protect the public against some of these products that are harmful and do not conform,” Mr Musimami said.
Mr Ebiru said the high prevalence of substandard goods on the market continues to raise eyebrows but has grown due to a number of challenges faced by UNBS.
“Not all the goods that come into the country are under mandatory standards which require service providers to certify. If you look at the gazetted entry points of this country where you can actually bring in any imports, UNBS is not present in all of them so there is a high level of smuggling through these entry points and the best area to intercept them is in the market,” Mr Ebiru said.

Steps being taken
UNBS is working to substantiate the magnitude of the problem and has commissioned a study to indicate the percentage of substandard goods on the market.
It also plans to intensify inter-agency cooperation with Uganda Revenue Authority and local governments to improve enforcement of the mandatory standards.
Mr Musimami said UNBS has arraigned a number of businesspeople in the courts of law. “We have had a number of cases prosecuted in the courts of law. We have more than 60 cases under investigation and we have had over 10 convictions in court,” he said.
Despite the challenges that range from corruption among staff, a perceived high cost of services, a small wage bill that constrains the agency’s work, officials say UNBS has been able to generate Shs10b in financial year 2016/2017 in non-tax revenue and projects to collect about Shs14b in the financial year 2017/2018.
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