National Quality Awards to enhance Standards Implementation

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The Deputy Executive Director in charge of Standards at Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS), Patricia Ejalu, has re-echoed the need for enterprises to acquire certification marks to attain national and regional recognition.

According to Ejalu, certification enables the business to register profits, enhance customer trust, and boost the organisation’s reputation critical for the success of a business in this competitive market. She was speaking during the unveiling of the 2nd National Quality Awards 2025 edition at an event held at UNBS headquarters in Bweyogerere.

She expressed satisfaction towards efforts that have been channelled towards boosting uptake of standards that has enabled large, medium, small, and micro enterprises to produce quality products.

“The National Quality Awards 2025 is about recognizing the enterprises that have been able to implement the national standards to meet those requirements, attain certification, and provide quality products and services to the people here in Uganda and within the region as well.  It is now the 2nd edition and we are celebrating those who have made the effort,” Ejalu noted.

While most MSMEs are deliberate in uptake of standards, the quality awards celebrate efforts by the private sector to provide products and services that the market needs. It also highlights the whole purpose of being in production.

“We have for long been primarily an importing country for basic things, but now we have turned that table and there are certain areas where we are now exporting more. We have more people producing the basic needs, the foods, and the cosmetics, and construction material that we need on a daily basis.

Matrin Ssebulime, a Certification Officer and Lead Auditor at the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS), emphasised that the assessment and the scoring of the organisations will be based mostly on the seven quality management principles that are generated from ISO 9001 of 2015.

“For Ugandan enterprises that are willing and really hoping to participate at the national level and are hoping to be competitive at the East African level, they should meet all the necessary requirements. If they ask for a procedure on how you generate training needs, please provide that and attach the evidence of implementation of this procedure.”

Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) has in the recent past awarded certificates of recognition to companies that implement ISO systems standards and are certified against ISO 9001:2015 – Quality Management Systems and Integrated Management Systems.

A study conducted by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) indicated that standardisation contributes 23.7% of Uganda’s GDP and economic growth annually.