adminoffer adequate and safe water to consumers while major and minor roads are riddled with potholes. Other public institutions are offering services next to none as people spend the whole day to get a complete service.
At the same time, the market is awash with local and imported products, some of which are made behind the backyard of someone’s lodgings and are of questionable standards. Upon this background, Paidamoyo Chipunza (PC) discusses with Standards Association of Zimbabwe’s quality assurance director Mr Sebastian Zuze (SZ) on the issue.
PC: What is the SAZ and its mission?
SZ: SAZ is the national standards body. Its role is to facilitate the development and use of standards to enhance competitiveness of Zimbabwean products and service in Zimbabwe, in the region and beyond.
Its role is dual, one is to enhance competitiveness of Zimbabwean products and services as well as safeguard welfare of consumers through the use of standards.
SAZ is the ISO representative in Zimbabwe.
PC: What is this ISO?
SZ: It is International Organisation for Standardisation.
What it means is that all the national bodies for standards i.e SAZ in Zimbabwe, SAZ in South Africa, BOZ in Botswana do things the same way and they form a federation of bodies that say anyone who has done things as we have agreed should be recognised.
For instance if you are going to trade in water to Malawi that is recognised by SAZ Zimbabwe, Malawi does not need to test that water again because it has already been tested by a credible body, that is the whole point.
PC: When you talk of standards, what are you looking at. What are these standards?
SZ: Standards are documents or a list of requirements, which look at how best an activity can be done.
When a company is producing a product, there are various activities that are done.
And those activities should be so focused that they produce quality products.
So anything that is produced, there are various standards that are applied to it.
There are management systems standards – this is a quality management standard.
There is also the environmental system standard, it makes sure that the manufacturer or service provider manages systematically the impact of their activities on the environment.
As you are aware there is much awareness that the earth is not an infinite source, there is going to be one stage where we deal with the impact of our activities on the environment.
So this standard makes sure you look in a focused manner on how best to deal with the impact of your manufacturing processes on the environment.
There is a standard called occupational health and safety standard – it makes sure that you evaluate the hazards which employees are exposed to as a result of the work that they do.
Particularly for the food sector we also have what is called the food safety management system standard, whose aim is to make sure that food is safe at the point of sale.
There are various points where food can be contaminated so these standards makes sure an organisation observes all these possible entries for hazards so that the food is safe.
There are standards to do with ethics.
People need to understand that to be successful, it is also dependant on how we run our businesses there is ISO 26 000, which talks about ethics.
It talks about how best organisations should be run in an ethical manner.
PC: What are some of the benefits of complying with set international standards?
SZ: Standards has the trade facilitation role.
What we are saying is if something is made in Rwanda, Mali, Kenya, UK or any other country and is recognised in its country of manufacturing with a credible body, those products can be sold in any other country without going through quality checks in the intended market.
It is also important to observe standards because they help a company produce customer-focused products and compete on the market with other nations.
They also help in upholding safety and protection of the customer.
Standards also improve internal processes in terms of efficiency and productivity and subsequently value adding to products.
It is also a marketing tool, which can be used to promote goods anywhere in the world because they would be internationally recognised.
One way the SAZ can support our Small and Medium Enterprises is by making sure that our indigenous companies adopt existing standards so that they are marketable world over.
PC: In Zimbabwe, how many companies or service providers are certified to be doing things according to international set standards?
SZ: Currently of all the companies in the country, only 120 are certified in quality management systems, 23 on environmental management systems, 17 occupational health and safety and seven in food safety management system.
We are happy that the number of certified companies is increasing compared to a few years ago. However, more can be done because surely Zimbabwe has more than 120 companies.
PC: How do you monitor that these companies are complying with these standards?
SZ: Like I said before, a standard will list requirements for instance it can say if you are going to provide a service you must have sound policy in place, continual improvement of the service being offered, you must have customer complaint desk and so on.
So when we give you the certificate, it is valid for three years thereafter the company has to re-apply again.
But if you get this certificate, SAZ comes to monitor your operations through our auditors regularly who look into the organisation’s compliant to the requirement.
We also have what we call mystery shopping where we go into an institution just to see if the organisation is complying with the requirement.
PC: How do consumers know that a product they are using has gone through quality tests with a reputable body?
SZ: Consumers should check for the SAZ stamp on all products.
It is the only way they are assured that the product they are using is safe.
PC: How does an organisation’s products or service go through standard checks?
Who approach who?
SZ: It is either way, SAZ can approach a company following complaints by consumers or a company can approach SAZ if it so wishes.
PC: What are some of the challenges that you are facing in fulfilling your mandate?
SZ: The major challenge is that there is no sound policy that supports out mission.
For instance it is not mandatory for a company to go through quality assurance, but we are glad that the Ministry of Industry and Commerce is working on introducing a National Quality Regulation Authority which will look into compulsory quality assurance for all companies.
Online Reporter