COMESA in drive to harmonise grain standards

By Edward Kayiwa

The Common Market for East and Southern Africa (Comesa) met Friday to kick start the process of harmonizing standards of maize grain across the region, and interpreting the existing standards.

According to Makayi Musaruwa, a trade expert at COMESA, the current variations in the levels of flatoxins and standards between the EAC and SADC translate into trade barriers and must immediately be ironed out.

Musaruwa said a well-functioning regional market requires coordination of sanitary and phytosanitary measures, as well as common product quality standards.

“We are trying to come up with harmonised testing procedures so that traders from the EAC and SADC blocks are not subjected to undue loses and delays stemming from variation of standards,” he said.

He further said the harmonization will also iron out standards differences with in the EAC region, where Kenya has often rejected maize from her neighbors or subjected it to double testing to ensure conformity.

Quoting Kenyan authorities, Musaruwa said the EAC standards that were garzeted by EALA are lower compared to the Kenyan standards.

“Kenya being a net importer of grains has designed a regulatory framework for itself which is different from what the EAC and COMESA have adopted. There are weaknesses in the EAC regional standards that must be addressed to harmonise grain trade,” he said


Charles Manara, an official from the Kenya bureau of standards said grading is one of the areas of contention in the EAC standards that calls for immediate harmonisation.
“we don’t seem to agree on what to categorize as grade 1,2 or 3 grain because the Kenyan market classifies only white maize as grade 1 yet there are other varieties in the region , especially Uganda, that are not white, but  Kenyans want to pay less because they think it is discolored” he observed.

Speaking at the workshop which was organised by Comesa in partnership with Uganda National Bureau of Standards to discuss how to harmonise standards, trade minister Amelia Kyambadde said the problem must be ironed out immediately to ease grain trade in the region.

“Despite the fact that Kenya and Uganda for example, are under one regional trade bloc and grow the same plants, both countries have different interpretation of the same standards and traders encounter loses and delays to deliver their products  in the market, “she said.

Kyambadde said her office has been receiving reports from traders that grain from Uganda to Kenya is declassified and brought to a lower grade that attracts lower prices.

The deputy executive director of Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) Patricia Ejalu said the bureau is providing facilities for Comesa to carry out testing.