Quality as an obligation

IN OUR trade environment, time is money but quality is health and sustainability.

Therefore, it is the obligation of all involved parties to ensure right information and proper actions to deliver compliant goods on time.

The service provider has to provide accurate information on the inspection process where exporters and manufacturers have to be aware of legal requirements for their shipments at the earliest stage.

In parallel, the buyer must inform his supplier about local standard requirements through its local standard body and qualify his supplier in the procurement process.

To cope with this CBCA process, all stakeholders must consider it as an advantage to them and a way to manage their risks (non-complaint goods, marking issues, wrong delivery, etc.) and as an independent third party agency, it must integrate the respect of national laws and standards.

Reluctant traders with sub-standard products will always claim for delays and incompatibility where compliant ones will integrate the con- formity programme into their logistic process through the supply chain and will use it as a benefit for their customers.

A compliant process will last no more than a week with proper documentation in place (invoices, test reports, packing list, ISO certificates) for normal Route A approach.

Through Registration and Licensing Routes, the timeframe is even shorter. The main point is that exporters must deal with the conformity process before the date of shipment taking benefit of the period to gather all necessary documents. Once goods are inspected and a satisfactory report has been issued, a certificate of conformity is issued and transferred to ZIMRA electronically to speed up the clearance process. For details, please visit the ministry’s website www. mic. gov. zw and for further enquires forward an email to mic@ mic.gov.zw or visit www. verigates.com. Requests for certificates may also be sent to conformity. zimbabwe@bureauveritas.com