The Ugandan government has decided to combat counterfeit products sold and manufactured in the East African country.

Deus Mubangizi, head of Quality Assurance Division at Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS), was quoted by Daily Monitor on Saturday saying plans are underway to work out modalities of enforcing a total ban on counterfeits.

The UNBS and Kampala City Traders Association (KACITA) have joint force on combating counterfeits as part of the strategy to protect the competitiveness of Ugandan products.

"We have to protect our genuine traders who are losing billions because of counterfeits. Nobody wants fake products and we are going to work with the UNBS to protect consumers as well," said Issa Ssekitto, spokesperson for KACITA.

Under the new partnership, the KACITA will be able to report counterfeit cases to the UNBS to make easy the operations against fake products.

"We shall be giving out information to the UNBS and vice versa. We need to improve our quality," Ssekitto added.

The partnership followed pleas by the UNBS Executive Director Terry Kahuma for more funding from the government because of a growing need for operations to fight counterfeits and enforce standards in the country.

The UNBS also required better laws for better enforcement of regulations.

Source: Xinhua