TANZANIA – In a bid to bring its services closer to its clients and also increase efficiency in service delivery, the Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) is venturing into the construction of a mega modern laboratory in each of the two cities of Dodoma and Mwanza.

The buildings, to be named Viwango House, are aimed at bringing services closer to clients as well as increasing efficiency in service delivery.

The TBS Director General, Dr. Athuman Ngenya , disclosed to newsmen that the project, estimated to cost about 9.9 billion Tanzanian shillings (USD 4,245,283), is among the organization’s key priorities and strategies for 2022/23 fiscal year.

According to him, in the 2022/23 financial year, TBS had outlined its priorities by considering the Bureau’s strategic plan (2021/2022-2025/2026), the National Five-Year Development Plan (FYDPIII) as well as sectarian policies (entrepreneurs, business and industries).

Dr. Ngenya said, his institution has also allocated 27bn/- (USD 11,578,044) towards the refurbishment of seven zone offices – Arusha, Mwanza, Mtwara, Dar es salaam, Dodoma, Kigoma and Mbeya, as well as increasing the work force and working equipment.

This will aid in expediting service delivery as well as reinforcing frequent inspections in order to remove substandard products in the market.

Furthermore, he noted, TBS has allocated 1.6bn/- (USD 686,106) that will be spent in preparing 630 national standards in different sectors. As such,  both producers and consumers will be assured access to market and product quality respectively.

The Bureau has gone further ahead to allocate 261m/-  (USD 111,921) for strengthening registration of products and storage areas of food and cosmetics in ensuring that consumers are not using substandard products.

In yet another move to ensure consumers have access to quality services, Dr. Ngenya said TBS has allocated 581m/- (USD 249,142) for improving accreditation of all the working systems.

In other priorities, he said the government had allocated 800m/- (USD 343,053) that will be spent in assessing and verifying the quality of the various laboratory test and other tests for industries and those from hospitals.

“We have also allocated 1.18bn/- for Pre-Shipment Verification of Conformity (PVoC) as well as destination inspection in efforts to ensure that the country does not fall into a trap of banned products in other countries,” he noted.

PVoC is conformity assessment procedure used to verify that products to be imported in Tanzania are in conformity with applicable national standards before shipment. It is conformity assessment and verification procedure to specific goods at exporting countries.

As per the legislation, before shipping to Tanzania all consignments subject to PVoC must obtain the mandatory custom clearance documents and certificate of conformity (CoC) without which the commodities arriving at Tanzania ports will be rejected and fined.

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