Executive members of the Uganda Clearing Industry and Forwarding Association in a group photo with UNBS officials at UNBS head offices in Bweyogerere
The Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) has urged clearing agents to facilitate the business community to comply with the UNBS Imports Inspection and Clearance processes in an effort to improve service delivery.
This was revealed by the UNBS Executive Director, Eng. James Kasigwa while addressing executive members of the Uganda Clearing Industry and Forwarding Association (UCIFA) at UNBS head offices in Bweyogerere on Thursday.
Through its market surveillance operations, UNBS has noted with concern that some imported commodities covered by Compulsory Uganda Standards have been irregularly by-passing the UNBS inspection and clearance processes at the entry points and bonded warehouses and exiting without the required UNBS Imports Clearance Certificate(ICC).
Circumvention of UNBS inspection exposes consumers and users of these products to several health and safety hazards caused by substandard commodities and is against the new UNBS value preposition of growing quality enterprises.
“Substandard goods unfairly out compete the locally produced quality products which in turn affect the achievement of the ten-fold growth strategy hinged on the export promotion, import substitution and industrialisation of Uganda”. Eng. Kasigwa noted.
Mr William Namutale, the national chairperson of UCIFA noted that Clearing agents are critical players in customs clearance and UNBS should work closely with them to promote and enforce standards for imported commodities.
“UCIFA is the linkage between UNBS and importers, therefore UNBS should collaborate with us as strategic partners to facilitate fair trade and increased compliance to quality and safety requirements”. Mr.Namutale said.
Recently, UNBS switched to the advanced imports electronic portal (new e-Portal), a web-based system integrated with Asycuda World in an effort to improve efficiency of the imports inspection and clearance process.
The new E-portal can be accessed via the UNBS website and Uganda Revenue Authority (URA’s) Asycuda World or on https://eportal.unbs.go.ug.
