UNBS now to verify relief, school food

The Minister for Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees, Mr Hilary Onek (left), and Napak Woman MP Faith Nakut flag off relief food to Karamoja at the OPM stores in Namanve, Wakiso District last month. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • Ms Patricia Bageine Ejalu, the deputy executive director-standards, on Friday said on average, the institution receives about 475 applications for clearance, 559 audits and 352 permits per month. She said the turn-around time for the applications to be considered for clearance is about 20 days.

Food dispatched to disaster-stricken areas and distributed to schools will be verified to establish whether it meets health standards, the executive director of the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) has  said. 

Mr Livingstone Ebiru, said the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) will seek approval from them before dispatching the food.

“We are not taking any chances on food. We are going to require OPM to buy relief food in advance so that we verify its health safety so that by the time disasters hit, we know that the food to be sent is safe for consumption,” Mr Ebiru said while meeting editors in Kampala last Friday.

Schools cautioned

“We want government to take that direction. We are also trying to force schools to buy food from certified suppliers. If our children are not fed on safe food, how do you expect them to live up to 60 years?” he asked.

Mr Ebiru warned school officials against using their influence to supply sub-standard food to schools.

In July last year, Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja rejected an assortment of relief items donated to flood victims in Kasese District for being sub-standard.

The items included 40,000kgs of maize flour, 20,000kgs of beans, 2,000kgs of sugar, 2,000 tarpaulin, 1,350 jerricans, 1,000 basins, 100 cartons of laundry soap, 1,000 mosquito nets, 100 blankets, and 100 mats.

“Kasese District is not a dumping ground, I have rejected blankets and mosquito nets because they are substandard. The supplier must bring good ones, these are the things that paint a bad image for our government,” Ms Nabbanja said.

She ordered government officials to return the relief items to Kampala before demanding that the supplier brings better ones.

When contacted yesterday, Mr Julius Mucunguzi, the OPM spokesperson, said the UNBS proposal had already been implemented following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Our relief food has always been verified since the Covid time when some of it was found unsafe. However, ask them whether they have enough capacity to carry out the verification process of these foods since there were long queues during Covid time at their offices in Nakawa awaiting clearance,” Mr Mucunguzi said. 

UNBS is a government parastatal responsible for adopting and applying standards for both imported and domestically manufactured products in the Ugandan market.