8 suppliers certified to import number plates

Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS) has certified eight suppliers of blank motor vehicle number plates.

This comes hot on the heels of complaints that some firms lodged with the Parliamentary Committee on Transport and Public Infrastructure on the implementation of Malawi Standards by the regulator, alleging that MBS was monopolising the market by sidelining prospective suppliers.

The importation of blank registration number plates is governed by the Road Traffic (Registration and Licensing) (Amendment) Regulations, 2010 whilethe Directorate of Road Traffic and Safety Services (DRTSS) issues importer licences.

But while confirming the development in an interview last week, MBS director general Bernard Thole dismissed allegations that the regulator has been depriving some legible companies business opportunities.

Thole added that MBS has been holding meetings with some of the concerned suppliers to help them understand the Malawi Standards and other processes.

He said: “Basically it was a misunderstanding. A number of suppliers did not understand how the standards are implemented and how that translates into meaningful businesses. We were given 21 days by the Committee of Parliament to iron out the issues and we are almost through with the dialogue.”    

According to Thole, the newly-certified suppliers will join four other certified suppliers who he said have been unable to supply the number plates for reasons known to themselves.

Commenting on reports of poor quality of some number plates on the market, Thole explained that each pre-shipment is tested to specifications of the standards and once the requirements are met, a report is sent to the Directorate of Road Traffic and Safety Services(DRTSS) for authorisation.

He said the challenge is when the product is already on the market and fails to perform.

“It is a little complex when the product has been certified and during use is showing non-conformance. It is like someone has passed the exam but during work, they are incompetent, what do you do?”

Thole, nonetheless, pointed out that MBS conducts market surveys to see the performance of the products but added these are not enough, hence there is need to continue improving compliance beyond the laboratory analysis and regular monitoring.

Last year, the Competition and Fair Trading Commission (CFTC) fined MBS and DRTSS for engaging in anti-competitive conduct over the deal.

Besides fining the two entities K500 000 each, the commission also asked the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to investigate why Motor Vehicle Spares & Accessories (Movesa) was allowed to supply blank retro-reflective registration plates despite the product failing the test.

The commission’s determination of March 28 2022 followed a complaint lodged by another prospective supplier, Bulldog Spares, over the anti-competitive conduct by Road Traffic and MBS during the blank number plates conformance tests.

The commission noted that Movesa and other bidders failed the conformance tests in 2016 yet Road Traffic and MBS allowed it to import a consignment whose pre-shipment sample had failed the test.

The commission further determined that the Directorate of Road Traffic engaged in anti-competitive conduct by influencing the granting of a waiver to Movesa to import a consignment of number plates whose sample did not conform to the mandatory Malawi Standard 639:1.

“The actions by DRTSS and MBS in this regard provided Movesa with an unfair advantage against its competitors, including Bulldog, thereby affecting competition on the market and was therefore in violation of Section 32 (1) of the CFTC,” reads the report.

From the book of standards and on workmanship, it was indicated that when examined in accordance with Section 7.1, the retro-reflective material and border of a blank plate should be free of creases, chips, blisters, discolouration and spots. However, hundreds of vehicles plying the streets of Malawi are seen with discoloured plates as well as creases and some chips.

There are also numbers without luminance factor as stipulated in Section 4.3.22 of the MBS Act while others are not resistant to weather as stipulated in Section 7.7.1.

In its complaint, Bulldog Spares claimed that in May 2015 they applied to MBS to become a blank number plate’s importer and got a pass test report on May 25 2015.

The company said on April 14 2016, the Directorate of Road Traffic issued them an importation licence which was copied to MBS allowing them to bring in retro-reflective blank number plates as well as serial numbers to be used.

In 2017, Bulldog lodged a complaint to CFTC that “the parameter used to test the consignment sample was different from the parameters used to test the pre-shipment sample” as stated in the import licence issued by Road Traffic.