South African National Accreditation System (SANAS)

The mission of the South African National Accreditation System (SANAS) is to create an impartial and transparent mechanism for organisations to independently demonstrate their competence and facilitate the beneficial exchange of goods, services and knowledge; and provide a service that is recognised as equatable to best international practice, while reflecting the demographics of South Africa in all that it does.

SANAS, as the sole national accreditation body, performs the following functions: promoting the organisation as the sole national accreditation body in its scope of activity; encouraging and promoting the accreditation of calibration, testing and verification laboratories, certification bodies, inspection bodies, rating agencies, and any other type of body that may be added to its scope of activity; encouraging and promoting Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) compliance with the principles adopted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for GLP facilities; promoting the acceptance of SANAS activities and those of all accredited bodies accredited by SANAS or its international counterparts; promoting the recognition of accredited bodies, by users of conformity assessments; liaising with regional and international standard bodies and with technical regulatory and metrology organisations in respect of any matter related to accreditation; liaising with national regulators in respect of any matter related to accreditation; promoting the use of accredited bodies to facilitate trade; advising national, regional and international organisations on the conditions for accreditation and on other issues related to accreditation; establishing and maintaining a register of all accredited organisations in South Africa; initiating, negotiating, concluding and maintaining multilateral recognition arrangements; supporting government in activities on multilateral recognition arrangements; obtaining and maintaining membership of national or international organisations that may assist SANAS in achieving its objects and actively participating in such organisations; formulating and implementing national guidelines and standards to facilitate the accreditation process; promoting recognition and protecting the use of the SANAS logo nationally and internationally; promoting and protecting regional and international arrangement logos, such as those of the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) and the International Accreditation Forum (IAF); establishing appropriate technical committees; and investigating methods of facilitating trade through accreditation.