Ethiopia has secured 2.1 billion Dollars from export trade during the fiscal year underway. However, due to low quality of products, the country also lost a huge amount of income for disqualification of some exportable products. According to the product quality inspection professionals, the major problem behind this incident is absence of implementation of advanced accreditation system which properly qualifies the products before they are provided to the international market. Nonetheless, the reality stated by the Ethiopian National Accreditation Office (ENAO) is a far cry from this thought.
Last May, the office was reassessed by international organizations and got recognition certification for its competency, impartiality, and integrity and sustainability of accreditation services in testing and medical laboratory. The office is also widely working to ensure the quality of import and export products. However, some low quality products are yet transacting into and out of the nation. This was disclosed last week when the nation celebrated the World Accreditation Day themed “Accreditation: Adding Value to Supply Chains.”
On the
occasion, ENAO Director General Araya Fesseha said that most of Ethiopian trade
uses elements of testing, inspection and certification activities. The office
plays an important role in reducing the cost of trade and doing business,
enhancing technology transfer, and increasing investment by providing globally
accepted accreditation services to conformity assessment bodies. It is also
enabling business to integrate in
to global supply chains, as they can demonstrate product quality through a common technical language needed to establish trust between business partners.
A report produced by the World Trade Organization indicated that the inappropriate use of conformity assessment accounts for ten percent of specific trade concerns but this percentage is much higher in Ethiopia, Araya stated. Although the office accreditation service creates the opportunity to address these issues, regulatory bodies are not forcing conformity assessment bodies to demonstrate their competency, impartiality, integrity and sustainability of their conformity by accrediting their activities.
Today, accreditation is an important tool to improve export trade through creating a shortcut for the complex business supply chains (transactions) with recognition of products, services and suppliers. ENAO is working with similar continental and international organizations to advance its system and set up to date accreditation parameters that the globe is applying today. As to him, the office has international recognition to accredit products and services in Ethiopia that serve/validate across the globe.
According to Araya, his office is undertaking various activities to widely apply accreditation services so that local products will have better quality and long expiry date. However, most people are far from accrediting their knowledge and product outputs due to the complex nature in the accrediting procedures therefore the office is working to automate its system, thereby customers would get effective services. Currently the office is undertaking recruitment of successful partners to the automation process, he disclosed.
Besides, he said that the automation system will be applied mainly to the document transaction procedures. “Personal appearance of experts in testing and witnessing is inevitable to accredit institutions”. However, there is low public awareness that’s why institutions do not contact the office to get accreditation. Consequently, the knowledge and product they provide is not valid at international level. Due to this, the country today is facing various problems related to return of exported products.
Among the country’s economic spectrums that negatively influenced by the low application of accreditation is agriculture. It has been clearly seen in poor quality of production, harvest and storing agricultural products. This year the country has also lost a large amount of foreign currency due to the return of meat, honey and grain faulty export products, said Yared Befikadu, Import and Export Product Quality Inspection Director at the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
The impact of underdeveloped accreditation system is costing the nation by paving the way for illegal trade. Today, agricultural inputs are entering into the country and being implemented by farmers. For instance, various types of pesticides are now in use by the farmers despite the absence of recognition by the national accreditation office. “We got more than five types of pesticides from farmers that are not accredited by the office,” said Gebeyehu Nigatu (PhD) from the Ministry of Agriculture. As to him, most of the pesticides are entered to the country illegally. And the farmers have been using them because of lack of supply of the legal pesticide.
Similarly, low public awareness is also another problem in applying accredited agricultural inputs. Some farmers want to use these pesticides focusing mainly on their cheapness than the quality of the product. Therefore, Gebeyehu stated that improving the accreditation system and the cooperation among stakeholders would help to bring illicit traders to legal system thereby the farmers would get certified agricultural input that can help to improve productivity.
According to Yared, low implementation and access to accreditation is emanated from absence of traceability, budget and input supply problem, poor operation system, shortage of trained manpower and low public awareness among others. Improving these constraints would advance country’s accreditation and elevate the benefit gained from quality products and services.
ENAO Deputy Director General, Getinet Tsigemelak noted that the improvement in accreditation plays an important role in facilitating information flow; the key vehicle to instant interaction between the supplier, manufacturer, distributor, retailor and customer. Supply chains are now more complex in terms of rapidity, scale, depth and breadth of global business interactions. He stated that accreditation determines technical competence, integrity and impartiality of conformity assessment services.
As to him, 80 percent of world trade involves the elements of testing, calibration, inspection and certification activities. It adds confidence, free exchange of goods, varying levels of quality thereby it increases costs to transporter and consumer. According to him, 96 percent of the global GDP transacts under the international accreditation system. Despite this reality, institutions in Ethiopia have seen reluctant to accredit their outputs by the office.
Consequently, compared to their number, few of the institutions are accredited. The National Accreditation Office has accredited only 80 institutions since its establishment. It also took the certificate of 20 of the institutions. However, Getinet underlined that it is inevitable to get accredited as it is an important tool both to the institutions and their customers. As to him, accreditation helps to ensure the wellbeing of the society by confirming the quality of products from various sectors including health, agriculture and construction.
Today the world is giving the needed attention to accreditation and most of the global nations have signed accreditation agreement through their associations. The European Union, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have signed the agreement with their own respective business partners on the implementation of accreditation.
On the other hand, about 51 African Union member countries [including Ethiopia] have signed the African continental free trade area. Therefore, the increment of such business cooperation and the complexity in the supply chains of business transactions would create a condition where trading requirements especially accreditation is a must.Hence, the country should improve its accreditation system so as to advance the quality of measurement to import and export transactions. As a result, it can possibly avert or reduce harm induced by low quality products. This would help to preserve the health of the society and the safety of environment in response. Moreover, advancing quality control would enable the nation to grab more business partners and increased foreign currency to its growing economy.
The Ethiopian Herald June 25, 2019
BY YOHANES JEMANEH
