Our standards ensure safety of consumers—MBS
The Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS) says its mandate does not involve production processes of companies, stressing that producers need to ensure that they follow quality assurance processes during production.
The bureau’s sentiments on Wednesday came at a time an illicit distil called ‘Ambuye N’tengeni’ or ‘Magagada’ killed eight people in Manase Township, Blantyre.
Since the incident happened, Malawi Police Service has launched a campaign to confiscate the distil and arresting the sellers in Limbe and several townships in the city while other quarters question the role of MBS on such issues.
MBS’s remarks also came weeks after a cigarette company, Credible Investments Limited (CIL) tussled with the Centre for Development and Economic Development Initiatives (Cdedi) over alleged presence of the company’s products on the market that had no MBS pre-certification marks.
But MBS director general Benard Thole said in an interview that the mandate of the bureau is not to monitor daily production stages and processes of companies, but promoting standardisation and quality assurance of products.
“The bureau ensures it safeguards the health of consumers by setting standards and we also conduct periodic checks or inspections, mostly quarterly, to verify if the set standards are being complied with.
“It is the responsibility of the companies to ensure that they maintain standards in their daily production, but if we find anything to the contrary, proper action is taken,” Thole said without directly referring to the Illicit distill.
Meanwhile, South West Police Region spokesperson Joseph Sauka said they are still confiscating the illicit product and that police have arrested three people suspected of trading in liquor products believed to have poisonous contents.
When put to him that the illicit product is still available on the market, Sauka said: “If they are selling then they are selling them secretly. But it is an operation that we cannot complete at once. It is still ongoing and we are hopeful that we will confiscate all these products.”
In the CIL matter, Cdedi executive director Sylvester Namiwa alleged that the company deliberately distributed for sale products that did not have an MBS pre-certified mark, but the company’s managing director Abbas Nasser insists the alleged products were counterfeit.
MBS is a statutory organisation established in 1972 by an Act of Parliament to, among other duties, promote metrology, standardisation and quality assurance.
