Trucks at the Nimule Customs yard | Credit | Deng Daniel

Sub-standard goods are being smuggled into the country at night when South Sudan border officials are off-duty, the Ministry of Trade has revealed.

According to the Ministry’s undersecretary, the border officials only operate for eight hours, which is contrary to all international borders working around the clock.

Mary Akech appealed to the national government to empower the National Bureau of Standard to ensure the institution always inspects goods entering the country.

She spoke during a joint meeting between her ministry, the Ministry of Labor, and the South Sudan National Bureau of Standard in Juba last week.

“All the international borders are working 24 hours. Our national border is working only for 8 or maybe 9 hours and the remaining period, there is dirty business taking place,” said Mary Akech.

“All the smuggling is happening at night. Our road is busier at night than at day time so the time that the business is busy, our employees are sleeping.”

In response, the Chief Executive Officer of the South Sudan National Bureau of Standard admitted that the institution was not discharging its work effectively due to inadequate capacity.

However, Mary Gordon Muortat said, the leadership has in the meantime signed a Memorandum of Understanding with five African countries on areas of capacity building, exchange of knowledge, and technology.

The countries include Malawi, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda.

“The Bureau of Standard plays a big role and it has to be properly functioning. We have signed MoU with a few countries for the exchange of training,” said Mary Gordon.

“We are very much concerned with building capacity, we are much concerned with the exchange of knowledge, we are much concerned with areas of work, technology needs exchange and we need our government to back us up.”

Mary Gordon has also called on the national government to support the institution saying it has not been able to participate in regional meetings because the country has not paid its membership fees.