District councils now to provide barcodes to firms

DISTRICT councils will now start providing barcodes to companies in their areas as the Global Standard One (GS1) Tanzania National Limited has embarked on countrywide campaign to empower them for the task.

Meanwhile, the government yesterday insisted that the Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) should not renew licenses of companies without having Tanzania’s barcode. The GS1 Tanzania National Ltd said it has started entering in agreements with the councils countrywide for them to issue the barcodes on its behalf.

According to Chairman of the GS1 Board of Directors, Dr Gideon Mazara, so far they have signed agreements with 12 districts to perform the task. “For the councils to give barcodes on our behalf would help in adding value on products right from the local level,” Dr Mazara said.

Minister for Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr Charles Mwijage, vowed that he would not bear with the TBS if they dare renew the licenses of the companies whose products do not use Tanzania’s barcode.

He equally directed the companies to acquire new Taxpayer Identity Number (TIN) issued during the ongoing evaluation exercise for them to qualify have their licenses under the TBS renewed. “To renew company’s license without Tanzania’s barcode and new TIN is a sin.

To make it clearer and concrete, I am going to issue you, TBS, a circular so that I put my directive in writing,” he said when speaking at the 4th Annual General Meeting of the GS1 held in Dar es Salaam.

His firm directive came after Vice-President Samia Suluhu Hassan in July this year directed all industries to use the Tanzania’s barcode, which has a country’s prefix of ‘620’ to strengthen identification of the country’s products and their markets within and outside the country.

Explaining the importance of the barcode, Mr Mwijage said so long as Tanzania moves towards the industrial economy, the country’s industrial products would need the barcodes for export purposes.

TRA Principal Taxpayer Education Officer, Ms Rose Mahendeka, said the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) depended on export statistics from the tax body but, unfortunately, there was possibility that the authority could be releasing inaccurate data because the traders use barcodes of other countries.

She elaborated that when a product from Tanzania uses the barcode of another country, it means that the product’s traceability indicates it was not produced in Tanzania; and thus cannot be considered as among the export goods.

“The statistics we give to BoT can be lower than what we actually export because many of the goods produced locally do not use country’s barcode,” she said. She further noted that to get the barcodes, the company has to get the TIN from TRA.

Source: Daily News