The Private Sector Foundation over seeing grain exporters has cautioned that traders who flaunt the standards of operation will be punished as the regulations require.
Last week , the Uganda National Bureau of Standards had to intervene for traders exporting maize to South Sudan whose trucks were withstood with accusation that their food items did not meet the standards.
The private sector following such events warned of how much losses are incurred across sectors when such things keep happening.
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South Sudan is a scalable market with over 10 million people with income enough to buy off Uganda’s products.
Steven Asiimwe , the Executive Director Private Sector mentioned that they are committed to train exporters on how to be export ready .
At the the moment , the foundation is training over 250 traders from Small Scale and Medium Enterprises. These are being taught to uphold all standards of operations for export goods.
“As a sector we are committed to high quality exports to build our trade base , those who flaunt the law should not think now and again we shall keep coming in to intervene. It should not be taken for granted , we can not afford to lose our markets over negligence .”
Harriet Ntabazi, the State Minister for Trade Industry and Cooperatives noted that their role as stake holders was to keep sensitising people and educating them on the required standards as the Private Sector is doing .
She further added that the government is committed to setting up infra structure of its own for storage. However in the meantime she encouraged farmers to get back to local ways of preservation using granaries which were moisture free.
Livingstone Ebiru, the Executive Director UNBS pointed out that that the agency was moving forward to now devise a mandatory document for traders to file with Uganda Revenue Authority to prove that they have been certified by UNBS.
In addition,the issue of porous borders was to be looked into so that traders can only go through the gazetted borders to ensure maintenance of high quality exports.
South Sudan Trade dispute has for the past weeks caused an impasse in among traders after the latter denied trucks from Uganda exporting maize grain , maize flour , beans and millet in the pretext that goods contained aflatoxins beyond the standard level.
By Shiphrah Kwagala