27 Oct 2015

Managing director of Botswana Bureau of Standards (BOBS) Ms Masego Marobela says the National Quality Infrastructure (NQI) is aimed at developing and establishing national standards while at the same time promoting their implementation in order to improve the quality of products and services for the benefit of enterprises, consumers and the environment.

Speaking at the Regional Training Course on Quality Management System in the Assessment and Control of Occupational Exposure, Ms Marobela said the Radiation Protectorate forms part of the NQI and part of the important institutions within the country forming the regulatory framework.

She said the objective of the training is to provide knowledge in quality management system for laboratories providing Dosimetry services for external exposure to ionising radiation with emphasis on enhancing the capacity on individual monitoring for occupational radiation protection.

Ms Marobela noted that Botswana was chosen as a host for regional IAEA member states to appreciate and tap into the accreditation experience on the National Dosimetry Laboratory under the Radiation Protection Inspectorate.

“WE at BOBS are happy to have contributed to the journey to accreditation undertaken by the National Dosimetry Laboratory through provision of internal audit and training some of the laboratory staff on the ISO/IEC17025 standard; the standard on the general requirements for the competence of calibration and testing laboratories,” she said.

The control of occupational radiation exposure through the provision of Dosimetry services is an integral part of one of the three main principles on which protection against ionising radiation is based being the principle of optimization of radiation protection.

She said that the premise of optimization is that all reasonable efforts are made to reduce doses due to individuals taking into accounts social and economic factors hence the IAEA Basic Safety Standards require the optimization principle to be applied in the control of occupation exposure in the workplace by radiation users. Ends