As exporters prepare to tap into reinvigorated market share in Zimbabwe now that the country is open for business once again, they’re well advised to ensure that they comply with Consignment Based Conformity Assessment (CBCA).
That’s the message from Harrison Muchenga of Bureau Veritas, the goods and standards watchdog that started rolling out CBCA in 2015. He said that CBCA was rapidly supplanting PSI, the “old way of pre-shipping inspection” that he claimed was fast disappearing as an accepted method of confirming the legitimacy of goods.
“The difference between PSI and the consignment-based programmes we assist countries with is the shift towards quality control. “With PSI goods are inspected at the point of departure but with CBCA goods won’t be even cleared without a certificate of compliance, whether they have been inspected or not.”
It applies to a wide range of goods. Already used in 140 countries, CBCA regulations apply to goods imported into countries as different and distant from one another as Kenya and Kurdistan, Algeria and Angola. There are however concerns about the lack of cohesive accreditation regimes between countries in Africa.
Zimbabwe and Botswana use CBCA while Namibia and South Africa rely on their own regulatory institutions, resulting in barriers to business remaining unresolved between SADC partners.
It’s a view that was explored by trade law specialist Abrie du Plessis as far back 2015 when he told the Trade Law Centre in Stellenbosch that CBCA “could pose challenges to governments in terms of design and execution in order to avoid them being in breach of provisions” such as those governed by the World Trade Organisation and “certain aspects of regional trade arrangements”
