Namibia hosts 9th SADC Quality Awards, as Eswatini, Zambia and Zimbabwe Scoop Awards

The Secretariat of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in collaboration with the Ministry of Industrialisation, Trade and SME Development for the Republic of Namibia on 13th March, 2019 hosted the 9th SADC Quality Awards at the Country Club in Windhoek, Namibia on the margins of week-long 34th SADC Technical Barriers-to-Trade (TBT) meetings.

The Guest of Honour at the Awards Presentation Ceremony, who is the Deputy Minister of Industrialisation, Trade and SME Development for the Republic of Namibia, Honourable Lucia Iipumbu congratulated the winners of the 2019 Quality Awards and encouraged them to promote competitiveness and quality of products in their respective member states.

Hon. Iipumbu said, with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the demand for quality and safe products and services with reliable and trustworthy traceability system will now increase, more than ever before. The Deputy Minister, therefore, commended the SADC Secretariat for holding the annual awards, highlighting that it will go a long way in completing and forming the strong foundation on which the Fourth Industrial Revolution will be built.

On her part, the Executive Secretary of SADC, Her Excellency Dr Stergomena Lawrence Tax congratulated expressed gratitude to the winners of the SADC Quality Awards for contributing to quality advancement in various sectors of regional integration, by having measurement and quality systems, procedures and processes that are in line with regional and international standards and best practice.

H.E. Dr Tax underscored the need for the application of basic Standardisation, Quality Assurance, Accreditation and Metrology (SQAM) principles which help to ensure safety and protection of consumers, while contributing to the enhancement of competitiveness, in order to realise SADC aspirations to industrialise and transform its economies.

H.E. Dr Tax said, guided by the regional Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap 2015 – 2063, SADC has placed industrialisation at the centre stage of the regional integration agenda which calls for the application of SQAM principles in promoting competitiveness to make businesses efficient, competitive in terms of price, time to market, safety and environmental compliance.

The SADC Member States whose business entities are on the winning list are; the Kingdom of Eswatini, Zambia and Zimbabwe as follows;

• Schweppes of Zimbabwe                             -  Company of the Year- Large Enterprise
• ZimTrade of Zimbabwe                                -  Company of the Year- SME
• Comaco of Zambia                                       -  Product of the Year-SME
• Eswatini Railway                                          -  Service of the Year -Large Enterprise
• Fairy Bottling of Zambia                               -  Exporter of the Year-Large Enterprise

Certificates of gratitude were also presented to the SADC Quality Awards judges namely; Mr Phila Mfana Motsa of Eswatini, Mr Cyprian Thlako Mokhoro of Lesotho, Ms. Ana Paula Da Silva Mandlaze of Mozambique, Ms. Rosa Katjivena of Namibia, Mr Tumelo Ledimo of South Africa and Ms. Lucy Marowa, Zimbabwe.

The awards presentation ceremony was supported by the International Cooperation Agency under the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) of the Federal Government of Germany. The event was graced by, among others, SADC Senior Programme Officer in the Directorate of Industrial Development and Trade, Dr Lomkhosi Mkhonta-Gama, Chief Executive Officer of the Namibian Standards Institute and 2019 Chair of the SADC Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Expert Group, Ms Chie Wasserfall, leaders of delegation from SADC Member States, officials from Namibia’s Ministry of Industrialisation, Trade and SME Development and some of the judges who conducted the adjudication of the awards.