13 th June 2023
Own Correspondent
Botswana has unveiled the National Quality Policy of 2022, to ensure Botswana’s goods and services are designed to match the needs, expectations and requirements of both the producers, retailers, consumers and the regulatory authorities in the domestic and global markets.
This was revealed at World Accreditation Day press conference at Fairgrounds today. “This is achievable through capacitating implementing institutions to have in place compliant quality infrastructure and technical regulations that conform to international standards,” said Ms Lesedi Kgotlele, Acting Deputy Permanent Secretary for Ministry of Trade and Industry.
She said, “The policy seeks to enhance trade through adoption and implementation of internationally recognized and acceptable Quality Infrastructure(QI) and Technical Regulations(TR) best practices that inculcate a quality culture across players and stakeholders in the industry, thereby uplifting Botswana’s global trade competitiveness.”
The World Accreditation Day is a global initiative jointly established by the International Accreditation Forum(IAF) and the International Laboratory Accreditation Co-operation(ILAC). The Day is celebrated every year under a selected theme. This year, 2023, the Commemoration is held under the theme: “Accreditation: Supporting the Future of Global Trade.”
Accreditation provides for competent, reliable and impartial testing and inspection of goods and services produced and used by both industry and the public through accredited testing and calibration laboratories, certification institutions and inspection bodies.
Botswana is a member of the Southern African Development Community Accreditation Services(SADCAS) which is in its 15 th year.
“SADCAS offers accreditation services to 14 SADC countries that do not have National Accreditation Bodies and has to date accredited 253 facilities in 16 countries. In Botswana, SADCAS has accredited 28 facilities in different sectors and methodologies since 2008,” said Kgotlele.
In addition to this and in an effort to build human resources capacity in the area of accreditation, SADCAS has so far conducted a total of 245 accreditation related training courses in the SADC region with 73 training courses conducted in Botswana.
It is expected that the benefits derived from these trainings would improve the implementation of key accreditation standards in the various conformity assessment bodies in the country resulting in the improvement in the quality of goods and services.
