The East African Community (EAC) has embarked on an exercise to review standards for products manufactured in the region.

The exercise entails review or withdrawal of existing standards, as well as development of new ones.

According to the regional bloc, the exercise which started on Friday will run to February 10, this year, and will include consultative visits to the five partner states’ capitals for views collection.

The exercise started with Kampala, Uganda (January 27-30) to be followed by Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (February 1-2), Nairobi, Kenya (February 3-6), Bujumbura, Burundi (February 8) and Kigali, Rwanda (February 10).

EAC Director for Trade Dr Flora Musonda said in a statement that the community secretariat has compiled proposals for the revision and also developed 2,500 new standards that cover products traded in the region. 

The standards review is done in line with provisions of the EAC SQMT Act, 2006 and the EAC Common Market Protocol, and according to Dr Musonda, it is in line with the requirements of international best practices which needs such reviews to be effected after at least every five years.

The 15-day exercise will include visits to national standards institutions, weights and measures agencies as well as other related bodies. The team also aims to capture comments and contributions from the public during the conduct of this mission.

“The public is informed of this development and those with views and contributions to the effect are encouraged to forward them to the chief executive officers of the national quality institutions,” Dr Musonda added.

The institutions to which members of the public can submit their views are: Burundi Bureau of Standards (BBN), Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS), Kenya National Accreditation Services (KENAS) and Weights and Measures Department (Kenya), Rwanda Bureau of Standards (RBS), Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) and Weights and Measures Agency (Tanzania), as well as the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS), the statement said.

The views gathered in the exercise will be presented to the Extra Ordinary Meeting of the EAC Standards Committee due to be held in the first half of this year, the statement said.