Dr. Mary Gordon Muortat, the Executive Director of the Bureau of Standards - Credit | Michael Daniel/Eye Radio | May 11, 2022

The National Bureau of Standards has claimed the Custom Service Officers at the border are undermining its work.

The Executive Director of the Bureau of Standards, Dr. Mary Gordon Muortat says interference by some influential people makes it difficult to check the goods before customs clearance.

Dr. Mary says the Customs clearance is supposed to carry out its task as instructed by the Standards Authority.

She also warned that failure to conduct inspection of goods exposes the country to health problems.

Speaking to Eye Radio on Wednesday, Dr. Mary urged the customer officers to cooperate with the Standards teams in carrying out their duties.

“The biggest problem that we are facing is the customs problem. Customs officials believe that the specification employees do nothing but procrastinate in the performance of work,”

“Customs clearance is supposed to take place after the work of the specification employees is completed. But now the opposite is happening, customs clearance begins to work, and after completion, they ask the specification employees to do their duty,

“The problem is that when we discover anything corrupt in the goods after customs clearance, the merchant always makes excuses that they have paid customs fees and they have no problem,

“When we demand that the inspection be carried out first, this is not an attempt by someone to know the value of the goods, but to ensure their safety and compliance with the standards of specifications and measurements.”

In April 2020 the Food and Drug Control Authority of South Sudan warned business owners against selling substandard goods to the public.

This comes after the authority realized that a list of 13 brands of hand sanitizers deemed not fit for the public were circulating in the market.

Mary Gordon Muortat says they are preparing to get rid of tons of spoiled goods by burning in the coming days.