The minister of trade and industry Monique Nsanzabaganwa has called upon Rwanda Bureau of Standards (RBS) to update its laws.

This call was made last week during the minister’s visit to the bureau. Her visit was meant to assess the improvement the bureau had made from last year when she visited.

RBS is charged with developing and implementing standards, establish proper test laboratories, control the quality of imports and exports as well as local traded products and services among others.

The minister pointed out that the existing laws under which RBS is run were put in place four years ago and in order to improve the efficiency in the institution, there should be changes to facilitate smooth operation.

The minister also pointed out the importance of scrutinising standards of products which is beneficial to the consumers, producers and the nation. She said that the lack of enough staff is another big challenge that RBS should move to address with its current staff standing at 87 workers.

During the visit, Dr. Mark Cyubahiro Bagabe the Director General of RBS said their task is to sensitize people to understand the role and objective of the institution.

"We are also asking the government to train the staff on a long term basis which will equip them with skills to use the equipments.

The government should provide more funds to enable the capacity building programs of the institution.

In an effort to improve the quality of the local products, RBS has introduced the product quality mark which will ensure quality standards and has already attracted two products so far Mützig beer and Nil mineral water.

Alongside the product quality mark, there are four more systems standards to be launched before the year ends.

The four standards that are in the offing include the environment management system, food safety standards, standardization mark and the quality management system.

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