Ugandans cautioned of fake, dirty soft drinks on market

By Prossy Nandudu
 
As the Uganda National Bureau of standards (UNBS) steps up efforts to increase compliance to standards, a section of manufactures of juice are still not conforming to the required procedures and standards.
 
To try and encourage them to conform, the executive director of UNBS, Dr. Ben Manyindo has asked them to start putting into practice the required standards before enforcement of the recently amended law can be effected.
 
According to the law, any body found selling dirty or goods which do not meet the required standard will have their premises closed or pay a fine of sh5m or a 3-month imprisonment.
 
"But before we enforce it we are engaging them, explain to them again the required standards and procedures such that when we move to enforce, they will be aware of what we are looking for," said Manyindo said.
He was on Friday addressing juice makers, producer, importers and traders, supermarket operators among others on the requirements in the production of juice and water and also to identify challenges limiting juice makers from producing quality juices.
 
Manyindo said that the major problem affecting juice production is poor hygiene ranging from the water used, equipment, workers, packaging materials, ingredients which fuel disease outbreaks such as typhoid and Cholera.
 
He also said that enforcement has been quite difficult because most of the juice makers had no proper addresses.

"The challenge is that most of the juices are on the market for a week and then disappears, some have poor packaging practices to the extent that one cannot be traced, this makes it hard to arrest such people," he said.
 
The manager of standards at UNBS, Martin Imalingati added that there over 100 juice makers in Uganda. Of these, only 40% have been inspected and certified which leaves out a bigger number of juice producers.
Morgan Gyaviira Boona, the secretary general of juice producers and water packers in Uganda expressed disappointment over UNBS failure to arrest that producing juice in unhygienic conditions.
 
"As producers and manufacturers of juice, we have no right to arrest anyone .All we do is to identify them, gather evidence and even get samples of their products to UNBS to act but since it's a government institution they believe in dialogue before enforcement so we are waiting," said Boona.