20 Mar 2014

The Botswana Bureau of Standards (BOBS) has launched a National Electro-technical Committee to benefit fully from the Affiliate Country Programme of the International Electro-technical Commission.

The Engineering Standards Manager at BOBS, Mr Obonye Lopang, said in an interview that the International Electro-technical Commission, a developer of all international standards related to electro-technical products, encouraged Botswana to form the National Electro-technical Committee.

Mr Lopang said the formation of the National Electro-technical Committee would allow BOBS to contribute meaningfully to the development process of all standards related to electro-technical products, at international level. He said as a participant in the International Electro-technical Commission Affiliate Country Programme, the

National Electro-technical Committee would receive guidance about how to monitor and comment on projects of specific International Electro-technical Commission technical committees or subcommittees and be able to select the most relevant technical committees or sub-committees for its national interests in the field of electro-technology, allowing Botswana to develop its knowledge in those areas.

By providing comments on the working documents from the technical committees or sub-committees related to the national interests, he said, the National Electro-technical Committee would also help the International Electro-technical Commission produce truly international publications, which would then facilitate the adoption procedure in Botswana.

“It will be through the NEC that we are able to have access to draft international standards that we can make comments on and contribute in their development,” he said.

“So, the NEC will be a conduit that the drafts pass through, for our experts to comment on, before they reach the IEC.”

He said another area that the National Electro-technical Committee covered was that they would also decide on standards for standardisation in Botswana.

Mr Lopang said, “currently, we only have technical committees that develop electricity standards, but most of the standards that we adopt, are IEC standards.

So we adopt them as national standards through these technical committees because we are not able to contribute meaningfully to their development at IEC. Once IEC has developed those standards and are published we adopt them through technical committees. But now with the formation of the NEC we now want to contribute to the development of those IEC standards.”

The National Electro-technical Committee consists of five members who have a background of electrical engineering and expertise in the electro-technical field.

The five members, whose role will be advisory, are Mr Pitso Baoki from the Ministry of Minerals Energy and Water Resources, Dr Thato Tsalaeile from the University of Botswana, Mr Mhaladi from BPC Lesedi project, Mr Pelaelo Kgomotso from Botswana Power Corporation and a representative of the Botswana Institute of Engineers. ENDS