Why sub-standard goods flood the market

By Benon Herbert Oluka




A new audit report prepared by the Auditor General’s office has laid bare the operational, institutional, financial and logistical challenges that have created loopholes for the relentless avalanche of sub-standard and expired goods on the local market.






The value for money audit report, which was released this month and covers the three financial years of 2005/06, 2006/07 and 2007/08, paints a horrific picture of a largely dysfunctional standards surveillance system, where about 50 per cent of locally manufactured goods enter the market without inspection of factories in which they are manufactured and nearly 30 per cent of imported goods are not inspected.






According to the report, which has been submitted to Parliament and the Trade Ministry, these inadequacies are due to the fact that the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS), which is mandated to enforce standards to protect consumers, is under-funded and grossly under-staffed.






Auditor General John Muwanga says in his report that there is a 60 per cent deficit in technical staff enrolment. He says UNBS currently has a total of 208 staff but needs 457.






“This variation, according to the management, was attributed to lack of funds to facilitate the recruitment of additional staff to fill the existing vacancies. This led to an overload on the existing staff to effectively execute its mandate thereby creating a loophole in its inspection activities and an avenue for the entry of substandard goods into the market,” says the report.






Within the financial years reviewed, for instance, field visits by Auditors revealed that UNBS was not represented at 141 (92 per cent) of the 154 Internal Container Depots (ICDs) and 19 (79 per cent) of the 26 border entry points, hence insufficient inspections.






The staffing challenges also affect enforcement locally. The report says UNBS inspected only half of the local factories it planned to inspect in the two financial years from 2006/07.






“Management appears to have placed little emphasis on local factory inspections, yet this is a vital activity in as far as ensuring the quality of locally manufactured goods is concerned,” said the report, which warns that the capacity of UNBS needs to be quickly improved since Uganda’s industrial sector is growing at about 9.1 per cent every year.






Inspection procedures


The audit also revealed that while UNBS inspection procedures require them to keep goods until completion of tests, they are at times violated due to inadequate testing facilities, lack of warehouses at entry points and poor enforcement of standards due to inadequate and obsolete laws.






The Auditor General recommends that UNBS ensures all entry points are managed, streamlining of inspection systems to ensure all consignments released to owners’ premises are followed up, amendment of the law, as well as increase in the staff numbers, especially technical staff in food science, chemistry, toxicology, electrical engineering, and laboratory analysis.






UNBS Executive Director Terry Kahuma, says he has a detailed response to the queries raised by the Auditor General, which he will avail today.