Strictly monitor quality of products

What you need to know:

  • The issue: Quality of products
  • Our view: The national standards body should strictly monitor adherence to guidelines and not relent in their mandate to ensure all manufacturers and shopping outlets comply with required quality standards.

The Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) last week issued a directive to all supermarkets in the country to refrain from displaying any product that does not bear a distinctive quality mark. In the January 16 letter, the standards body instructed all owners of wholesale and retail outlets to enforce the use of quality marks.

The letter also put on notice supermarkets that are involved in value addition such as baking, packaging and branding, among others, to ensure their products are certified with immediate effect – with the distinctive quality mark as required by law.

That UNBS would write a letter “to request shops to only deal with products that have been certified and bear a distinctive mark … before putting them on shelves” is revealing. All wholesale and retail outlets, which include supermarkets, are required to adhere to basic operation standards but these rules have been flouted with reckless abandon.

There are many examples of shopping outlets selling expired or substandard products, thus exposing consumers to various risks, including health hazards. For instance, UNBS one time announced that 60 per cent of juice producers in the country are unhygienic and it was difficult to understand or even know how many juice manufacturers exist in Uganda.

This is because it is very easy for anybody to start making and packing juice at home without securing formal approvals. As a result, some makers of juice, according to the standards body, pack coloured water and claim it is natural juice...
There have also been cases of restaurants being closed, especially in the city, for operating unsuitable kitchens and selling food that is unfit for consumption. Similarly, shopping outlets have also been closed over failing to observe minimum health and safety standards.

Just recently, police carried out an operation against counterfeit products in Kampala. During a joint crackdown by UNBS, Uganda Revenue Authority and Uganda Registration Services Bureau, assorted goods were impounded.

Last year, UNBS announced that more than 50 per cent of the goods on the market were substandard. Lack of compliance with set standards certainly derails efforts by the standards body to rid the country of fake products. Yet under the UNBS Act, no person is allowed to import, distribute, sell or have in his or her possession or control for sale or distribution any commodity for which a compulsory standard specification has been declared.

The national standards body should strictly monitor adherence to guidelines and not relent in their mandate to ensure all manufacturers and shopping outlets comply with required quality standards. Entities that do not respect set guidelines should face appropriate penalties.