By MAIMBOLWA MULIKELELA ? –
THE Zambia Bureau of Standards (ZABS) has produced several standards to help manufacturers who will set up businesses in the industrial clusters to produce quality products.
This will enable the manufacturers to apply for standards for various ?products when the industrial clusters are established.
ZABS has signed a Memoranda of Understanding with the Citizen Economic Empowerment Commission (CEEC) and Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) to implement the Industrialisation and Job Creation Policy.
A series of standards have been produced for mango, dairy, soya-beans, ?cotton, honey, pineapples and fish.
ZABS acting director Nicodemus Malisa said the bureau was playing a ?critical role in realising the objective of the Government by ensuring ?that products produced in Zambia met the required standards.
To facilitate support to the various value-chain clusters ?offices are being opened at provincial centres and plans ?are underway to establish presence at district level.
“ZABS will make available its modern testing laboratories including ?mobile laboratories. It will also offer training services to entrepreneurs and ?it will offer product certification and management system ?certification,” Mr Malisa said.
Speaking at a two-day ZABS media training workshop in Lusaka, held last week under the theme, “Bridging the Information Gap”, Mr Malisa explained that his institution was facing challenges in implementing standards because a number of them were voluntary.
About 2,000 standards have been developed but Mr Malisa noted ?that only 54 of them were mandatory.
He explained that the bureau has to this effect made a submission to ?the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry to consider making the ?standards used under the value addition and industrialisation ?compulsory.
Currently, ZABS is carrying out sensitisation programmes with the ?stakeholders on the standardisation that have been produce under the ?value addition and industrialisation.
He said there was need to develop standards for the construction ?industry, electrical and engineering products.?He said the economic success of the nation depends upon the ability ?to manufacture and trade in products and services that have accurate ?and precise measurements and are traceable to international standards.
Speaking at the same function, Commerce, Trade and Industry Minister ?Robert Sichinga said the media plays a critical role in the dissemination of standards.
In a speech read for him by ministry director Tobias Mulimbika, Mr Sichinga ?challenged the media to take keen interest in issues of standardisation in order to understand how.
Mr Sichinga noted that ZABS was trying hard to ensure that the ?products that were produced in Zambia as well as imported ones ?met the required standards.