The Minister of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, Hon Amelia Kyambadde has today said that the implementation of the pre-verification on conformity of imports (PVOC) date has been extended as a government decision to harmonise various technical and logistical requirements.

The implementation which was set to begin on Dec 3 with sensitization of all stake holders was halted by the Ministry of Trade on realization that a number of stakeholders' especially small business communities had not been catered for in the programme.

Kyambadde said that before, the PVOC programme was designed for volume importers forgetting that most Ugandans are small volume importers who often have to combine goods to fill up a container.

It is on that note that the programme was halted to avoid the same mistakes the programme had in 2010 before its closure.

She called upon the public to be aware that the programme has not been abolished as it was stated earlier by some stakeholders but has been extended to find ways of protecting the small business importers.

Kyambadde said Uganda has a lot of entry ports of which some of them have no PVOC service providers which has allowed an overflow of many fake goods on the market to the demise of the health and safety of the Ugandan people.

In Sept 2012, the cabinet authorised the re-establishment of PVOC after it was stopped by the President in 2010 the year of its initiation after receiving complaints from business people that it was very expensive.

This programme will be re-established through UNBS which will be doing the standards inspections of all the imported goods.