Good practices lacking: Officer

Business

There is a lack of good practices when it comes to regulating the country’s goods and services market, the National Institute of Standards and Industrial Technology (Nisit) director-general Victor Gabi says.
He told The National that they were looking at working with the regulators of goods and services market such as PNG Customs Services, Investment Promotion Authority, Independent Consumer and Competition Commission, among others, to ensure good regulatory practices were maintained.
“We observe and experience a lack of good regulatory practice when it comes to the regulators responsible for regulating the goods and services market,” he said.
Responding to queries regarding the quality of goods and services, Gabi said they had a lot of recommended international standards that Nisit adopted that could be used to greatly improve efficient regulatory decisions, this was not the case.
“These regulators need our help to introduce appropriate standards for their use and assist them improve their services,” Gabi said.
“Nisit does not expect regulators to start implementing standards it sets, hence it is also important that Nisit has the necessary training and mentoring programmes in place to assist these regulators.”
He said Nisit and its stakeholders were formulating several memorandum of understandings (MoUs) to ensure this was put in motion.
Gabi said the MoUs would be signed with the PNG Customs Services, Independent Consumer and Competition Commission, National Fisheries Authority, Small Medium Enterprise Corporation, Investment Promotion Authority, Immigration and Citizenship Authority, National Information Communication Technology and PNG Power Limited.
“These MoUs will allow Nisit to fully understand the internal challenges of the regulator and assist their managements and boards to put in motion necessary corrective actions, appropriate standards based training plans and programmes and assist with their activities by doing joint surveillance audits and inspections,” he said.
“Once Nisit has made all efforts to put standards systems in place with various regulators, Nisit will seek approval from the National Executive Council (NEC) to put in place a regulatory standards committee under the standards division of Nisit and to allow Nisit to audit regulators under its certification division for compliance to international standards or the international best practices on a biannual basis.”
Gabi said the effort would take at least the next medium term and would be reflected in its corporate plan and quality policy, which were presently under development.