54% of goods on market fake – UNBS

UNBS boss. Mr Ben Manyindo 

In Summary

Blocked. The report also indicates that of the 8.6 billion products inspected, about 33 million were found sub-standard and stopped from being imported.

By DERRICK WANDERA

A surveillance report by Uganda’s national standards agency for 2017 and 2018 indicates that more than 54 per cent of goods on the market are fake, but the public thinks as high as 80 per cent of the goods are substandard.

But the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) report also says trade in substandard goods has dropped from 73 per cent as captured in a baseline study in 2013.
“From the study, it was established that a cross-section of products on the Ugandan market both imported and domestically manufactured are substandard. On average, 54 per cent of the sampled products failed tests for compliance to Ugandan standards. Under import inspection function, 133,517 contingents were inspected against planned inspection of 120,000,” the report says.

“This increase was largely due to the increased compliance to the PVOC (pre-export verification of conformity to standards) programme that requires that imports be inspected from their countries of export before entering Uganda,” the report adds.
The report also indicates that of the 8.6 billion products inspected, about 33 million were found to be sub-standard and stopped from being imported into the country.

But Mr Ben Manyindo, the UNBS executive director, said: “Over half of the 54 per cent sub-standard products are locally made. We are continuing to engage the local producers to register with UNBS and bring their commodities for verification.”

Last year, as a way to promote competiveness of local products in the region and international market, government introduced the ‘Buy Uganda Build Uganda (BUBU) slogan.
Mr Manyindo said this has hampered the standards of the local products as many local producers fail to conform to the rules and regulations.

He said the substandard products have found their way into the Ugandan market through adulteration of standard products by traders buying cheap products from the international markets and dealing in expired products.
“When it comes to verification at the borders, they [traders] present pens when they have books. This means fake books will enter into the market without being verified,” Mr Manyindo said.

The UNBS report also indicates that the substandard products on the market are mainly foods and beverages, followed by cosmetics and chemicals, electronics and electro appliances, and construction products.

Mr David Ediru, the UNBS deputy director for finance and management, said some of the products are failed by poor hygiene and chemicals.
“We do not observe hygiene while making our food and also the cosmetics used by women have a chemical [hydroquine], which is used for bleaching and yet it causes cancer,” he said.

The UNBS report also indicates that of the 3,812 energy meters tested in January to June 2018, at least 1,389 of them (28 per cent) failed to meet the standard.

The field verification for energy meters started in June 2018 as a pilot study in Kampala city suburbs of Banda, Nankulabye and Nateete.

The report says a total of 437 meters were inspected and 36 found non-compliant.
Mr Ediru said they have introduced the pre-export verification of conformity to standard (PVOC) which helps to verify products from their original countries before they enter the country and that is how they have managed to cut on the numbers of substandard products.

UNBS spells out penalties for persons found in possession of substandard products. These include being taken to court for sentence, giving a fine or both depending on the value of the products one is dealing in.
The substandard products are also destroyed by burning so that they do not get back into the market.