Impact of Market Surveillance Activities on Certification Services of Uganda National Bureau of Standards in the Past Five Years(2017/18-2021/22)

Manirakiza Leonard^*
*Correspondence: Manirakiza Leonard, Department of Applied Statistics, Makerere University Kampala, Kampala, Uganda, Email:

Keywords

Market surveillance activities • Distinctive mark regulation • Certification function

Introduction

In Section 2, Sub Section (1) (f) of the UNBS Act, UNBS is mandated to enforce standards in protection of the public against harmful, dangerous and sub-standard products, while section 20 of the Act prohibits the manufacture, sale, distribution or holding for the purpose of selling any product that does not meet compulsory Uganda standards [1]. Market Surveillance is mandated to enforce the Distinctive mark regulation (Quality Mark) for all locally manufactured products covered by the compulsory standards and other relevant regulations.

On the other hand, UNBS operates a Product Certification Scheme in accordance to the provisions of the Certification Regulations of 1995. Under this scheme, manufacturers apply for and are granted permits to use the Uganda Standards Certification Mark (The Quality Mark) on their products after demonstrating compliance of their products to the requirements of relevant National standards [2].

In the last five years, the Bureau has witnessed an increase in performance of both market surveillance and certification services. Since the Certification function is the custodian of the principal seal of Quality in Uganda, the Q-Mark (Distinctive Mark) while market Surveillance is mandated to enforce the Distinctive mark regulation (Quality Mark), it was imperative to examine the impact of surveillance activities on the certification services [3,4].

Purpose

The purpose of this trend analysis was to examine the impact of market surveillance activities on certification services over the past five years (2017/18 to 2021/22).

Methodology

This trend analysis report utilized previous performance data for market surveillance and certification from 2017/2018 to 2021/2022 years. Correlation and regression analyses were applied to examine the associations that exist between market surveillance activities and certification services.

Results

Physical performance over the past five years

Figure 1 indicates the physical performance of market surveillance and certification services over the last five years. The fig has clearly demonstrated a progressive increase in the performance for both functions over the last five years.

Impact analysis

There has been a very strong and positive correlation between market surveillance and certification services (r=0.947). This implies that an increase in market surveillance activities leads to increase in certification services. The coefficient of determination (R Square=0.896) indicated that 89.6% of certification services are influenced by market surveillance activities [5]. This association between these functions was statistically significant (p=0.0147) (Table 1).

Conclusion

There is a positive association between market surveillance activities and certification services of Uganda National Bureau of Standards. This implies that enforcement services have positively influenced compliance services over the past five years.

Recommendation

Uganda National Bureau of Standards should strengthen both market surveillance and Certification functions in terms of staffing and financing in order to maintain the trend of compliance to Quality issues in Uganda.

Conflict of Interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

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