Programme Director;
Esteemed Guests;
Members of the Business Community and Media present;
All protocols observed.

The provincial government of KwaZulu-Natal is pleased to have been granted the opportunity to host this important gathering where the region and the African continent are conversing on the issue of forging common quality standards for the production of goods and services which is essential for meaningful industrialisation.

We are delighted because it offers the province the opportunity to learn about the best production and packaging practices that should be adopted to ensure that the region’s market offerings are competitive as a result of adhering to agreed quality standards.

A couple of years ago, especially after entering the new millennium, the whole world was abuzz with the concept of globalisation which indicated that the new form of industrial development knows no national boundaries due to technological advancement in the production of and movement of goods and services to meet the growing demand in all nations of the world. This wave of optimism about unencumbered global trade and inherent benefits of increased international understanding and mutual respect amongst nations has found a new expression in the form of the present anecdote that calls for a massive investment in the development of new industrial skills in anticipation of a titanic shift in production modes to embrace new cutting edge technologies including deployment of robotics in place of human labour.

The debate on the Fourth Industrial Revolution at both regional and global level is gaining unprecedented traction – generating a combination of positivity and apprehension as nations are concerned whether they are ready to actively and effectively participate gainfully from the new industrial phenomenon that calls for the acquisition and application of new skills. Africa cannot afford remaining behind hence the issue of skills training becomes critical to be able to survive in the highly competitive environment. This gathering certainly resonates with what the world is talking about as we would acknowledge the issue of standardisation is not only about policing the creation and production of market commodities to ensure ethical conduct and compliance with environmental protection regulations. It is also about guaranteeing quality market offerings that could compete at par with what the rest of the world is offering in what had become borderless market where consumer have to be assured of the value for their money.

It is pleasing to note that many of the continent’s governments are taking the issue of standardisation seriously and the collaboration exhibited by different expert bodies assigned to manage standardisation processes in the continent’s respective countries bears testimony to a continent that has adopted a long term view about the future. But again, to be able to produce products that enjoy confidence of both local and international consumers, it becomes imperative that we share ideas on how we could improve our capacities both at design, production, service, monitoring, evaluation and distribution levels to keep pace with the rest of the world.        
 
More importantly, African Union leaders have made it clear about their vision of an integrated region that trades amongst its own nations whilst challenging for their share of the global market. As we attempt to move out from the raw commodities based export economies towards value-added products we could ill afford not to adhere to global standards.

Africa is endowed with numerous minerals and other commodities that are exported to industrialised nations in the west and east but the continent wants to reverse this as it wants to use its raw materials to produce various consumer products for the world market.

Further, Africa’s population, according to the consulting organisation, Mckinsey would have two billion people by 2050 which would be 24% of the world population. This growth in population figures would be accompanied by a shift in terms of lifestyles with more young professionals attaining middle class status which is associated with copious consumption of goods and service which is expected to strengthen the continent’s economy.

This positive trend on Africa is further confirmed by the United Nations’ data that estimated that 60% of the continent’s people would be living in urban areas – with heightened levels of middle class spending. Back in 2014 predictions by Ornico Group illustrated that, at least by 2020, Africa’s consumer spending on consumer goods would be clocking $1 trillion.

Certainly, the anticipated growth should benefit Africans. It is for this reason that forums like this would contribute significantly in the creation of `Made in Africa’ brand.  As African economies, partly through standardisation, we can turn around the negative perceptions about the quality of goods produced in our continent. This objective is achievable. A case in point is that of China. As recent as the 1990s, Chinese products were treated as inferior. Yet, through their deliberate investment in standardisation; research and development as well as persistence, today they are a highly industrialised economy with their products, particularly in the electronics sector, being highly-sought after. As African countries, we need to emulate the tenacity of our sister Asian countries who have challenged the hegemony of the developed economies in establishing their own brands.   

Programme director, the promulgation of the Southern African Development Community Industrialisation Strategy and Road Map 2015 – 2063 is an ambitious stance for the region, but unless member states acknowledge the role of standardisation to ensure we produce quality and environmentally-friendly products, it would remain a pipe dream.

The envisaged Africa’s Freed Trade Area that would see all regions of the continent such as SADC, EAC and COMESA would feature integrated customs, lifting tariffs that would remove all trade impediments should not be associated with lowered products and service standards. Instead, we need to cross-pollinate our knowledge and experiences to upgrade our standards to catch up and surpass other developed economies. We are somehow fortunate in our region in that we could learn from other advanced and emerging economies that have cut their considerable space in the global market in terms of exporting manufactured products that are competitive. We should learn from the mistakes of those who were trendsetters and not repeat their mistakes. We must utilise our late comer status to our advantage.

Programme director, South Africa had long carved its position amongst the trading nations as an adherent to the production of quality products to safeguard the ethical integrity of her products whilst assuring ultimate consumer of the country’s diverse market offerings. This we have done through our South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) and other industry watch-dog entities like South African National Standards (SANS) that oversee production processes. It must be stressed that SABS is not a dictatorial organisation that develops and activates quality assurance policies in isolation from other role players and stakeholders including industrial and commercial entities.

Our national standards are therefore developed through a consultative process which requires balanced stakeholder involvement where we have representatives from government, regulators, private sector, non-governmental organisations, small scale enterprises, consumer interest bodies and as well as research and academic institutions.

This we do because we believe that the decisions taken are inclusive and binding to ensure that policies and strategies that emerge out of engagements could carry the tag of national interest destined to advance the country’s economy. We are, therefore, proud that we have been able to share our experiences with the rest of the region whilst also learning from their own knowledge. Our membership to multilateral standardisation bodies such as Southern African Community Co-operation in Standards (SACDSTAN), African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO) and International Standardisation Organisation (ISO) is indicative of our commitment to collaboration towards achieving second to none compliance by industry to high quality standards for both export and import products on the African continent.

As we are serious about locating ourselves amongst leading regions in terms of quality inspired industrialisation, SABS and its subsidiary structures are seized with the task of ensuring that the country’s dream of achieving high levels of growth and competitiveness is not obliterated by self-serving by-pass of regulations. The policies and strategies we have in place are geared towards, amongst other things, ensuring South Africa’s net economic benefits; observation of acceptable occupational and health standards; safety and welfare of users and consumers; environmental protection and conservation our bio-diversity capital; maintenance of best and ethical industrial practices; adoption and deployment of new technologies for new generation of industries and as well as evaluation of industry fitness to live up to the nation’s industrial vision.

However, while standardisation is critical for the global competitiveness of African economies, equally we must be awake to the objective fact that most of our economies are still recovering from decades of colonialism and, in our case, apartheid. Both colonialism and apartheid sought to relegate Africans to the periphery of the economy. The net effect of this is that skills necessary for African industrialists to be competitive and which are also a guarantee for companies to get required standard grading, are very difficult to come by amongst African entrepreneurs. What this means is that we have to invest in requisite skills, particularly amongst indigenous entrepreneurs, in order to ensure that they too qualify for the required grading. Investment in education is important in this regard.

Second, the attainment of the required grading is often prohibitively expensive, particularly for emerging, African enterprises. Engineers inform us that, for example, the process of acquiring the ISO 3834 certification may cost up to R1 million. What this effectively means for a an African-owned company in South Africa which encounters a request of such a certificate as prerequisite for qualifying a contract, is that not possessing such a certificate cancels it out even before its capability to perform the work can be tested. The standards authorities, working together with other stakeholders, also need to review their approach, both in terms of the requirements for the attainment of the standard and the period it actually takes to acquire the standard.

Standard bodies need be awake to the broader socio-economic imperatives and not be removed from the day-to-day realities of their countries’ objective conditions. In the case of South Africa, standard bodies, taking into account our sad past, need to strike the balance between upholding the highest standards and advancing the radical economic transformation agenda towards a national democratic society.

Critically, continental standard bodies must advance the African agenda. The reality of our situation is that the existing standards are, like many other aspects of the obtaining African experience, largely influenced by European standards. What this means is that whereas it is easy for European companies to compete with African companies for business because we largely rely on European or Western standards, it is quite difficult for African companies to compete with European or Western companies in their own localities. We must consider, as Africans, cultivating our own globally competitive standards that would give us an advantage in our continent. Key to achieving this is investing in science and technology and, generally the STEM disciplines so that we can produce our own engineers, programmers, innovators, inventors, quality controllers etc.

Programme director, corruption is a cancer that permeates all strata of society. Occupying the position of determining whether a product passes or fails, makes those who work in these standards bodies to be primary targets for corruption. While we have the utmost confidence of all of you who are guardians of standards, we must also as ARSO be awake to the possibility that the corruptors may target some of the guardians. This raises a question: “Who guards, the guardians?”

In this regard, the question of ethics and adherence to good governance principles by standards guardians are of cardinal importance. Those whose products and services do not meet the criteria must have no doubt about the objectivity or fairness of decisions of standards bodies. Further, organisations like ARSO must consider introducing peer review and self-regulation amongst standards bodies in order to ensure adherence to sound ethics. We must not have standards bodies advancing the interests of a few or performing gatekeeping practices for those  
 
Programme director, the introduction of regulatory standards is not about government obsession with the imposition of battery of useless bureaucratic rules that could stifle and frustrate growth and competitiveness. The contrary is the case as we believe that where there are no guidelines and authority, the interest of the consumer and long term industrialisation process would be jeopardised. Importantly, the global competitiveness of African economies would suffer a serious setback if we forgo adherence to standards.  

Together as province, the country, the region and continent, we could use integrated standardisation protocols to marshal our economy towards greater growth levels as this would be based on enforcing high ethical standards in terms of conceptualisation, production and marketing of “Made in Africa” products. Africa has to be at the core of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to be able to influence its share of this anticipated wave of industrial growth inspired by the deployment of supersonic technology that calls for considerable in skills training for our young people to be part of this positive bandwagon.

I thank you.