KAMPALA: MPs have slammed the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) for not protecting people from fake goods on the market.
UNBS is mandated to enforce standards in the protection of public health, safety, and the environment against dangerous, counterfeit, and substandard products. The Bureau is also supposed to make sure that trade is fair and that businesses are precise through reliable measurement systems. Because standardisation makes businesses in Uganda more competitive, it helps the economy by promoting high-quality goods that can be exported through standardization.
However, the Mbarara City South Division Member of Parliament and Committee Chairperson, Mwine Mpaka, argues that the entity does not have the capacity to protect Ugandans from consuming sub-standard goods. He said that there was not enough staff and that it took about four days for UNBS to test one product.
Mwine says UNBS staff at the border entry points work for only 10 hours and can’t mount 24-hour surveillance and vigilance, thus giving leeway for substandard goods to enter the country. He made the comments while interfacing with UNBS officials on Tuesday. The committee asked UNBS officials to answer questions about how many fake products are getting into Uganda’s market.
Substandard products consist of both locally manufactured and imported products. Government revenue is lost, intellectual property rights are violated, and health and safety risks to consumers are among other things when people buy fake goods.
For instance, in 2020, UNBS destroyed 232 metric tonnes of substandard goods it impounded across the country, worth Shs2.5 billion. Due to UNBS’s limited capacity, the country could lose about Shs6 trillion of its Shs41 trillion annual budget to substandard and fake goods.
Mwijukye first raised the issue of the importation and sale of counterfeit goods in the Uganda market on the floor of the House on March 2, 2022. He attributed it to weak regulatory mechanisms and corruption, which jeopardise innovation and undermine legitimate business.
David Livingstone Ebiru, the UNBS Executive Director, said that the Bureau has been running the Pre-Export Verification of Conformity to Standards Program (PVoC) since 2009, which has cut down on the number of substandard imported goods.
Ebiru told URN that even though the programme has been in place, the Bureau has seen a lot of nonconformity in locally made products, especially those made by small businesses.
Ebiro also said that the Bureau has a lot of problems, like not having enough people to cover all of the places where the border is marked, smuggling, under-declaring goods, and not having enough people to register and formalise businesses.
A new law is being written by the Ministry of State for Trade and Industry called the Counterfeit and Consumer Protection Bill. This law is meant to protect consumers and ensure that both products made in Uganda and those imported meet the right standards.
MPs were also concerned that, even though there are laws in place to stop counterfeit goods on the market, strict enforcement hasn’t worked, allowing them to stay on the market.
Some of the products include foodstuffs, iron sheets, cosmetics, building materials like cement, toilet paper, polythene bags, electronics, alcohol, solar panels, drugs, and chemicals, among others. According to UNBS, about 54 per cent of products on the market are either fakes or counterfeits, which places them at a high probability of being substandard.