Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS)

Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) has been instructed to abide by laws in fulfilling their obligations of goods verification to save the country from becoming dump poor quality products.

The remarks were made by the TBS Chairman, Prof Athuman Chande when the board members visited the office premises in the Northern zone regions including Tanga, Kilimanjaro, and Arusha to sensitise workers to adhere to laws on quality and standards in the country.

“We have to make sure that we inspect both local and imported products accordingly as the laws instruct us, especially to these places where the products are frequently passing,” Prof. Chande said.

He added that they extended the visit up to Tarakea in Rombo District to inspect the quality of products in the border promising to handle challenges including the improvements of office premises to facilitate good performance.

“Other organisations have places where their workers can access services that may hinder them to perform well… so we must make the workplaces good and reliable to enhance workers' efficiency,” he added.

Furthermore, Mr Chande said that TBS is planning to recruit more workforce to guarantee a good performance that will help TBS to fulfil better its obligations of ensuring the production of high-quality products in the country.
“TBS has a shortage of workers but we are sure that the bureau will hire others,” he added.

Adding “The board will pay a visit at the working places to collect ideas and to hear the challenges facing our workers,” he added.

On his part, The Director of Quality Management of TBS, Mr Lazaro Msasalaga representing The General Director, Dr Athuman Ngenya, said the imported products are still under inspection by using two different systems including Pre-export Verification of Conformity (PVoC) whereby TBS is using the external Agency to verify different products before reaching in the country.

“PVoC programme helps in measuring and identifying the number of products that have been restricted to be exported,” Mr Msasalaga said.

Adding “Every agent placed by the TBS is required to give the information about the number of cargo been certified for meeting the required standards, and the cargo that failed to abide with the standard,”
Mr Msasalaga also said TBS has a routine checkup of both local and imported products in markets to see if they are still complying with the quality standards and insisted the system is being supervised well.