KENYA – A task force on standards and quality infrastructure reforms has been appointed by the Cabinet Secretary Ministry of Industry, Trade and Cooperatives of Kenya, that will push reforms in institutions/agencies involved in the standards and quality infrastructure ecosystem in the country.
Known as the National Task Force on Standards and Quality Infrastructure Reforms, it is expected to review and evaluate the weaknesses and shortcomings of the entire Standards and Quality Infrastructure, institutional architecture and arrangement.
This is in bid to meet the country’s goals of managing and mitigating risks to quality, health, safety, environment, fair trade practices, and consumer protection among others.
The appointment comes after several products were suspended from the Kenyan Market by the Kenya Bureau of Standards alleged to have breached the required processing modalities.
The main aspects to be reviewed include policy, legal and legislative frameworks; institutional roles, objectives, functions and operational scopes; opportunities and risks posed by discretionary powers in the implementation.
In addition to that, monitoring and enforcement of standards and related regulations; inter-agency coordination and cooperation in the standards enforcement and monitoring; institutional capacities to execute their functions among others will be a point of focus.
The taskforce is also expected to make specific recommendations to the Kenya Bureau of Standards regarding institutional weaknesses, the recruitment, appointment, contracting and monitoring of third-party conformity assessment services and performance and management of the PVoC programme.
“With an office term limit of three months from the date of the publication of the Gazette notice, the TaskForce shall be answerable to the Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Industry, Trade and Cooperatives.” Said the statement from Ministry of Industry, Trade and Cooperatives statement.
The ten-member task force shall comprise of a chairperson; four government representatives with various expertise including Legal and Policy competency, Institutional HR competency, Customs Administration, Security Services represented by Kenya Law Reform Commission(KLRC), Directorate of Personnel Management (DPM), Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and the National Police Service (NPS) respectively; two Private Sector Members to be nominated by the Boards of the Associations, and three Independents Members from Academia/Research, Institutional design and system and Non-affiliated professional of good standing.
