By Lodu William Odiya
The South Sudan National Bureau of Standards has yesterday affirmed commitment to implementing harmonize African standards on automotive industry.
These remarks came during a workshop organized to create awareness on implementation of harmonized standards for the Automotive Industry.
Speaking during the opening, Gloria Nyoka Joseph, the executive director for the SSNBS emphasized that harmonization is an important step which is facilitating trade within the continent, especially in implementation of the African continental free trade area.
“As the National Bureau of Standards, it is our role to adopt these standards for the country, all the stakeholders and consumers in this industry to benefit from these standards” she said.
“Awareness is important for the implementation of these standards with all the stakeholders at both level, big government and private sectors” she added.
Nyoka said the harmonization of the ARSO Technical Committee on Automotive Technology and Engineering, is an important step which is facilitating trade within the continent, especially in implementation of the African continental free trade area.
“The standards are more important than ever to ensure materials and products are meeting their specifications” she stated.
She underscored the automotive standards are not exceptional, but are regulations and requirements for various aspects of the automobile industry such as quality and performance, safety, emissions that govern the production and use of automobiles.
“This is to make sure vehicles meet certain production and automotive safety standards that define minimum requirements for parts, systems and technologies in this industry” he stated.
She reiterated SSMBS commitment to working together with ARSO, the development partners and all the stakeholders in issues to do with implementation of the standards.
“The Bureau of Standards will not implement this standard alone, but it is a collective responsibility for all of us, for being the government or the private sector, the other stakeholders from the other institutions to make sure that we are implementing it for the safety of our consumers” she highlighted.
On his part, the African organization for Standardization’s (ARSO) Secretary General, Dr. Hermogene Nsengimana said that using one standard, one test, and one certificate that is accepted everywhere enable product from South Sudan can go from the country and reach South Africa.
“If you don’t enable the standardization organization, the trade cannot happen. Trade can be at the national level, but trade is also in general for the integration. It’s about safety of your people, it’s about trading with other people, it’s about environment” he highlighted.
Nsengimana emphasized that ARSO was mandated to harmonize standards for the Africa Continental Free Trade Area.
He further stated that ARSO is helping countries to align the national quality policy to the Africa Quality Policy.
Nsengimana noted that there was other key policy document that the African Union has currently approved, which includes the Africa Technical Regulation Framework that requests all countries to withdraw conflicting standards.
The harmonization of the automotive industry involves the development and implementation of standardized regulations and standards to ensure safety, environmental protection, and performance across borders.