Posted on January, 18, 2019 at 09:41 am
By Dorothy Nakaweesi
Kampala. Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) has directed supermarkets to desist from putting on their shelves any product that does not bear a distinctive quality mark.
In a letter dated January 16, UNBS directed all owners of wholesale and retail outlets, among them supermarkets, to enforce the use of quality marks.
“UNBS requests you to only deal with products that have been certified and bear a distinctive mark … before you put them, the notice addressed to all supermarkets reads in part.
The notice also directed that supermarkets that are involved in value addition such as baking, packaging and branding, among others, to ensure that their products are certified with immediate effect.
The distinctive quality mark, the law requires that all locally manufactured products carry a quality mark.
UNBS has for a long time now been involved in a bitter fight that seeks to reduce the manufacture and importation of substandard products.
Last year, the standards body announced that more than 50 per cent of the goods on the market were substandard.
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.
Some of the products covered under compulsory standards include but not limited to foods, drinks, electronics, cosmetics, steel products and cement, confectionaries (bread and biscuits), apiary and mattresses.
Mr Ponsiano Ngabirano, the Capital Shoppers chairman and chief executive officer, yesterday told Daily Monitor, he was not yet aware of the directive.
However, Mr Shaban Sserunkuuma, the Consumer Education Trust programme director, said the standards body was moving in the right direction.
“UNBS cannot work alone, they must reach the furthest points in the ecosystem in which they operate. We think partnerships of this nature will not end with the counterfeiters,” he said.
Source: Daily Monitor