By Lodu William Odiya
The Minister of Trade and Industry, Atong Kuol Manyang, has vowed to team up with the South Sudan National Bureau of Standards (SSNBS) in ensuring standards of goods entering South Sudan.
Atong calls for teamwork to deal with substandard commodities, comes at a time when the SSNBS Executive Director continues to apprehend several trucks of substandard product and return them to the country of origin.
In a separate statement, the Bureau continue to vow to protect the lives of the population from substandard, toxic, and harmful products.
On Thursday, Minister Atong visited laboratory and metrology sites, all managed by the SSNBS for quality assurance.
The Minister also visited SSNBS headquarters, where she was welcomed by SSNBS Executive Director Gloria Nyoka Joseph and the staff.
Speaking during the welcoming ceremony at SSNBS headquarters, Atong said constant tours would ensure compliance, particularly in the early stages of implementation.
“We must also increase regulatory oversight to prevent monopolies and ensure compliance, particularly in the early stages of implementation. As a government, we recognize the five critical elements of control that safeguard our lives and well-being of the people” Atong stated.
She vowed to ensure team work citing that the work of SSNBS is critical in building investor confidence, protecting consumers, and enabling South Sudan to stand tall in the Eastern African and global markets.
“Let us move forward together with a shared vision of excellence in everything we produce, certify, and export” she stated.
Atong emphasized that the oversight ranges from strict product safety regulations and enforcement mechanisms, transparent labelling and full disclosure of product contents.
She also underscored regular inspection and real-time monitoring of goods in the markets, public education and awareness to empower consumers, and legal accountability for noncompliance and harmful practices.
“These pillars form the backbone of our national quality agenda. They are essential not only for protecting our people, but also for building the trust and credibility we need to expand our trade and attract investors” she highlighted.
Atong underlined that she acknowledged the pressing needs related to infrastructure, equipment, space, reagents, and staffing for the bureau of standard.
“These issues deserve our immediate attention. Looking to the medium term, we must continue to prioritize capacity building, ensuring our professionals are well trained and our systems are aligned with the regional and international standards” she highlighted.
“This includes acquiring modern laboratory testing equipment and enhancing our ability to detect harmful compounds that may affect our people” she added.
She revealed that at the level of the Ministry, they had been advocating on behalf of the Bureau of standard especially to whoever the ministry met.
“I have personally added my voice that we need more advanced equipment and also to ensure that your labs are also up to a standard, and I will continue to do so on your behalf” she stressed.
Minister Atong emphasized that in the long term, “our collective goal must be the modernization of the Bureau across the whole country with a permanent state-of-the-art headquarters and fully operational national laboratories that meet global benchmarks.
In her part, South Sudan National Bureau of Standard’s (SSNBS) Executive Director, Gloria Nyoka Joseph said that as the bureau of standard, they are charged with overall responsibility to protect the nations in terms of consumers, environment and trade, adding that both imports and export.
“We are also protecting the traders themselves from being cheated when they are bringing their goods into South Sudan or taking it out of South Sudan” she said.
Nyoka emphasized that it could not happen until implementation of the vision, the mission and the objectives of the South Sudan National Bureau of Standards were made.
She said their main mandate is to make sure that the bureau of standard is improving the economy of the country.
“This economy cannot be improved unless we are implementing the standards and we make sure that we have goods that are going out especially when we talk of export because we want really to make sure that we are in the outside market not only in South Sudan” she highlighted.
She added that if their vision and missions were implemented, then “for sure the income will come to South Sudan by exporting the products from South Sudan.
“South Sudan is a potential country to export and we have share butter, oil seeds, honey and many that we can talk about it” she added.
Nyoka revealed that the Bureau has been achieving since its establishment stating currently, the bureau is having the quality mark certification for products and also training and building capacity of the staff to be auditors and certifiers.
South Sudan National Bureau of Standards (SSNBS) is a scientific regulatory institution which was established by the Act of Standards 2012 and Weights and Measures 2012. It is a parastatal institution that is supervised by the Minister of Trade.