The fight against sub-standard and counterfeit products could gain momentum if the government honored the request of Members of Parliament to increase the Uganda National Bureau of Standards’ funding. The legislators on the Trade Committee of Parliament who toured the UNBS laboratories in Bweyogerere decried the lack of modern facilities to test a wide range of products manufactured locally and those entering the country. Uganda National Bureau of Standards Executive, Ben Manyindo told Legislators that besides the lack of a modern facility, they were still struggling with lack of enough manpower to man the different offices across the country.
Ben Manyindo, Executive Director UNBS said “When it comes to export inspection, we have only 49 inspectors at the borders and yet when you see the borders where we clear goods, they are over 170. So 49 in 170 borders that is an impossible task. So that’s why am trying to impress it on the Members of Parliament to see the capacity gaps as far as human resource is concerned. And that is only one area, I also did mention that we only have 8 to do the market surveillance all over the country..... So we are trying to make them appreciate that we really need the numbers to do our work better.”
This was in most cases being blamed on low funding, which made it hard for the Standards’ body to recruit more technical people to test a range of products and issue quality marks. Legislators on the Trade Committee of Parliament were shocked about the state -of affairs at the body that was supposed to set standards for foods and beverages among other things. The parliamentary committee chairperson, Kenneth Lubogo said “As a committee, we are definitely very concerned that UNBS is curtailed, I want to use the word curtailed in executing its mandate especially because of budgetary issues and it’s very disturbing the way this country handles issues of priority.”
Kenneth Lubogo promised to lobby the government to increase its budget allocation to UNBS to save Ugandans from consuming harmful products. According to budget reports, Uganda National Bureau of Standards was supposed to receive 30 Billion Shillings but the Standard body received only 16 Billion Shillings. It remains to be seen if the request to increase funding for the Uganda National Bureau of Standards will be considered in the next financial year and the whereabouts of the 14 Billion Shillings traced.
