By William Madouk
The 22nd Standard Management Committee (SMC), a sub-committee for the East Africa Standard committee kicked off in Juba, today.
In her remark, the Executive Director for the South Sudan National Bureau of Standards (SSNBS), Gloria Nyoka stated that the SMC meeting in South Sudan is the first of its kind.
“It had been done in the other partner states, but this is the first time that Juba is hosting the EAC SMC meeting,” she said.
She explained that SMC is the committee in charge of all the subcommittees in the East Africa region, including quality assurance, conformity assessment, testing, and metrology.
“They have done all their meetings and now they have submitted all the reports to the SMC, so the SMC also has to come and have a deliberation and discussions on these sub-committees issues,”
Nyoka stated that all concerns and outcomes from the conference would be submitted to the 27th meeting of all CEOs and MDs of the Bureau of Standards in the region, which is scheduled for next month in Arusha.
The five-day SMC meeting is attended by all partner states, both virtually and physically, according to the Bureau of standard’s boss, who adds that this summit will assist South Sudan in standardizing standards.
“It is giving us also a chance that, when we have our national standard for South Sudan, we also forward it ahead to the technical committees, different technical committees, and this standard will be harmonized and it will be used for all the East Africa,”
“That means it gives our products from South Sudan to go outside South Sudan. And we are looking at enhancing our economy in South Sudan. We cannot enhance our economy if we are not exporting products, these are some of the benefits,”
Engineer Yona Afrika, chairperson of the EAC Standards Management Committee, cited that they are responsible for facilitating trade and ensuring that items manufactured in the EAC can transit freely across regional borders without Technical Barriers to Trade
Eng. Yona Afrika speaking to the media at the SMC meeting in Juba
From his part, engineer Yona Afrika, chairperson for the EAC standards management Committee stated that they are tasked to facilitate trade and ensure goods produced in EAC are moved freely without having TBT in the borders of the region.
“So, we are obliged to make sure that the standard we are developing, is of the need of the EAC business community and the need for EAC business community, I mean EAC community in general, to safeguard the community and the entire population of the EAC,”
He stated that standards protect the environment, health, and people’s safety.
“I mean the environment of the EAC people and safety of the EAC people, they are safe. So, this is the most and the foremost task of the sub-committee in the region,”
For example, Afrika observed that several EAC members produce fertilizers, whereas agriculture accounts for the majority of the EAC’s GDP, therefore establishing fertilizer standards will benefit the EAC’s agronomy.
“So, we know that by making the standard for fertilizer suit the requirement of the EAC then for sure, we know that we’ll be promoting agriculture within the region and that agricultural produce will now be moving across and safe for the people,” Said Afrika.