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Harare Bureau
FRENCH-BASED standards firm, Bureau Veritas, will begin testing imported products for acceptable standards at the end of this month after the initiative failed to start in May this year.
The Consignment Based Conformity Based Assessment was initially scheduled to start on May 16, 2015 (Date of shipment), with all products regulated by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce exported into Zimbabwe having to be accompanied by a CBCA certificate.
But Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha said yesterday enforcement of the consignment based conformity assessment exercise would now commence on the 27th of this month and the initial phase of the CBCA would run for six months.
The next and full implementation phase of the standards verification process for all imported goods will commence on November 1, 2015 after the transitional phase period to end of October and thereafter run for four years, minister Bimha said.
Minister Bimha said the exercise had been delayed to allow incorporation and considerations regarding issues to do with pricing or rates levied to importers for their goods and some technical issues that the minister would not discuss yesterday.
Concerns raised by business regarding pricing or rate at which imports would be levied, which Minister Bimha said has been sorted out, related to discrepancies between the rates intended to be applied in Zimbabwe and those across the world.
“We felt that it was within their rights for stakeholders to bring the issues and for us as government to entertain them and engage Bureau Veritas the company that we had agreed with to come and implement this programme,” Minister Bimha said.
“Because we now had issues, we felt we wanted Cabinet to also interrogate this agreement and to discuss some of the issues that were coming from the stakeholders and those were the two reasons why we had to delay the implementation.
The minister said that he had briefed both President Mugabe and Cabinet on the sticking issues to the CBCA initiative and approvals had been granted with emphasis that this should now be implemented without delays.
“As far as government is concerned, there is need to protect our consumers, there is also a need to ensure that we encourage our local producers and to take opportunities that are coming as a result of this exercise. It is not just for them to produce, but for them to produce quality goods that meet our own and international standards to do with safety, health, environment and quality,” he said.
The lifespan of the Bureau Veritas CBCA programme would also serve as training platform to acquire and localise global best practice on acceptable standards ahead of establishment of the National Standards Regulatory Authority.
Principles of the bill for the legally empowered national standards regulator have already been approved by Cabinet and on completion of its set up transition are expected to be smooth and seamless riding on experience gained from Bureau Veritas.
These initiatives also come amid realisation Zimbabwe has become supermarket for regional and global economies in pursuit of “hot US dollar” at a time industry is struggling to produce competitively after a decade of economic meltdown.
Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce new president Davison Norupiri pledged the support of his business constituency he leads for the success of the CBCA.
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries president Busisa Moyo also pledged support and refuted reports that industry and business were opposed to the initiative.
“We’re for it, we just had few concerns and those concerns were to do with raw materials. On finished goods we’re very clear, comparing in terms of like for like; that is what comes into the country and what we produce locally, we hope to see industry emerging and capacity utilisation going up,” Moyo said.
Online Reporter