UNBS moves to enforce food standards in schools

The Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) has ordered learning institutions across northern Uganda to purchase foodstuff from certified suppliers.

The standards body embarked on the enforcement of quality foods following complaints from parents and media reports on food poisoning in schools. 

Ms Winnie Atugonza, a senior certification officer at UNBS, said the intervention would ensure food safety.

“During purchase of raw materials, if you get poor quality, you produce bad food for learners and if you don’t store the food correctly. You should have mechanisms put in place to ensure nothing goes wrong to ensure you produce safe food for learners,” Ms  Atugonza said. 

She also cautioned school proprietors against preparing food that might be contaminated with chemicals.

 “For those who produce foods from farms, if you are applying fertilisers or spraying animals and birds, what quantity do you mix and how long do you let the crops or animals last before you harvest to serve to learners?” she asked.

Implementation
Last weekend, UNBS started sensitisation of local leaders, schools and their administrators from northern Uganda in Gulu City on food safety requirements.

According to Mr Patrick Ogwang, an educator at Gulu Prison Primary School, challenges arise from the inability to differentiate authentic products in the market, due to the proliferation of counterfeit UNBS standards labels. 

“We have incidents of a product bearing the standards mark but the producer does not have the certificate, besides, the recent spate of confiscation of contaminated maize from Uganda by neighbouring countries makes us fail to know who a genuine grain supplier is,” Mr Ogwang said.

Mr Patrick Odong, a teacher at Alero Academy in Nwoya District, said farmers need to be sensitised on the dangers of overdosing crops and animals with agro-chemicals and harvesting them before the recommended period.

“The contamination starts right from the farms and farmers need to be brought on board, what does UNBS have to do to ensure that while our learners consume the vegetables and animals bought from the market, they are safe? Once we leave the farmers out then we are likely to continue consuming contaminated food,” he said.

However, Mr Anthony Ojok, the head teacher of Amuru Seed SS in Amuru District, blamed the purchase of contaminated grains on tax evasion.

“Certified grain suppliers are way out of reach to many of us schools because these companies supply us food and do not want to pay tax and want the schools to shoulder the burden, so schools resort to uncertified supplies from whom they buy and save for taxes,” Mr Ojok said.

Ms Patricia Ejalu, the UNBS’ deputy executive director-in-charge of standards, said they are determined to enforce food security. 

“We already started with Kampala and now northern Uganda, we are going to different regions to empower them. We want to speak to schools about the certification services, and the enforcement carried out by the surveillance teams,” Ms Ejalu said.

“We have also introduced the digital conformity mark that allows a consumer to check the authenticity of a product while they buy, we have started with a few products including cosmetics, construction materials and electronics,” she said.

Ms Ejalu stated that the government would soon introduce the National Food Authority under the Ministry of Agriculture to coordinate different players in the standardisation process.