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Regulation of Compulsory Standards

Regulated Products

What are Compulsory Standards?

There are two kinds of standards, namely the VOLUNTARY and COMPULSORY standards (Technical regulations). These standards differ primarily in their implementation processes.
Whereas Stakeholders have a choice in implementing the former, they do not have the same liberty with the latter. That means compulsory standards are enforceable by Law whereas voluntary standards are not, and this enforcement of compulsory standards is provided for in the Standards Act, Section 13, which states that any one violating a compulsory standard is committing an offense.
Section 14 of the same Act provides for Fines and Penalties for such offenses, and it states that, anyone found guilty of violating a compulsory standard is liable for imprisonment of 3 years and a fine of P3000.00.
Products that need to conform to compulsory standards are referred to as Regulated Products

WTO Considerations :

It should be noted that Botswana is a member state of the World Trade Organization (WTO), so BOBS takes into account the demands of WTO Technical Barriers to Trade (WTO-TBT) Regulations and Code of Good Practice during the process of establishing compulsory standards.
The WTO-TBT Regulations and Code of good practice among others provide the Criteria for establishing and implementing technical regulations, and also cautions against making them unnecessarily too stringent for fear of the resultant non-compliance and the implications of such as well creating Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT).
The Compulsory Standards Unit (CSU) within BOBS is responsible for the enforcement of the implementation of compulsory standards and the implementation of Standards

Import Inspection Regulations (SIIR) – (Botswana Product Conformity Programme). The enforcement is done using the following services

IMPARTIALITY AND CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT
The Botswana Bureau of Standards (BOBS) understands the importance of impartiality and confidentiality in carrying out its management system certification activities. BOBS management is committed to gaining and maintaining the reputation, credibility and ultimately, confidence of its stakeholders in rendering its certification services. Additionally, BOBS strives to continuously manage foreseen potential conflicts of duty and interest and ensures objectivity of its activities under the management system certification. To achieve the above, BOBS shall identify, analyse, record and manage potential conflict of duty and interest to ensure that certification services are not provided within relationships that have been identified to pose an unacceptable threat to impartiality. An Impartiality Committee shall periodically review activities of the certification function to verify commitment to credibility and fairness. The Committee shall further assist in the development of policies relating to impartiality of providing certification activities. BOBS is committed to maintaining in strict confidence all information accessed while rendering the certification services and shall ensure that such information is not divulged to third parties without the Client’s written consent unless if required by law.
Demand Quality

When things don't work as they should, it often means that standards are absent.

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