Govt to restructure SAZ

Zvamaida Murwira Senior Reporter
Government is mulling a Bill to restructure the Standard Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ) into a regulatory arm, a development aimed at strengthening the organisation to effectively discharge its role, a Cabinet Minister has said. Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha told Senators that there was need to ensure that SAZ enforced standards of products. Minister Bimha said this last week while fielding questions from Senators.

Bulawayo Metropolitan Sen Tholakele Khumalo (MDC) wanted to know if Government was supervising small factories to ensure that their products had necessary nutrients.

“In terms of standards, there is the Standards Association of Zimbabwe. Their role is to set standards and encourage players in the manufacturing sector to comply with those standards. Madam President, as of now the Standards Association of Zimbabwe does not have a regulatory authority to enforce those standards that they come up with.

“Hence, we are in the process of coming up with a Bill to Parliament on the setting up of a National Standards Regulatory Authority,” said Minister Bimha.

“It could be in the end, an issue of restructuring the Standards Association of Zimbabwe, but as of now, we do not have the law where Standards Association of Zimbabwe enforces standards, but it encourages the conformity to standards.”

Responding to another question, Minister Bimha said Government will now scout for an investor for Zisco without impediments of discord that were created by the inclusive government.

He said one challenge that Government faced were differences arising from political parties as a result of the subsistence of the inclusive government.

Mashonaland West Sen Tapera Machingaifa (Zanu-PF) had asked about progress on Zisco Steel.

Minister Bimha said the Zanu-PF Government was handling the Zisco Steel issue in an integrated way.

“Remember that in the past, ESSAR wanted to come in and they nearly pulled out of this deal during the time of the inclusive Government. We had Ministers coming from different political parties, ZANU PF and MDC-T, and hence they were giving out different instructions.

“Now what we are saying is we are one Government and we have put all the responsibilities under the Ministry of Mines.

“We are saying ZISCO is an integrated process and we definitely look forward to the success of our programmes. We are saying Buchwa is one of the areas we are interested in,” said Minister Bimha.