Dear Sir/Madam


Thank you for your message and complaint before responding to your specific concern I would like to clarify the roles of the various organizations involved in certification to ISO standard as follows:


The role of ISO:

ISO is a standards development organization and as such we are only involved in the development of standards. ISO is not in any way involved in the certification of companies to any of the standards we develop. This is done by independent organizations called certification bodies. Therefore a company cannot be either accredited or certified by ISO.



The role of certification bodies:

When we publish a standard it will have the ISO logo and the number of the specific standard, for example ISO 9001. Independent (largely private) certification bodies certify companies against this standard and then they issue a certificate under the name and logo of the certification body itself but referring to the ISO standard e.g. ISO 9001. This sometimes is understood by the public to imply that ISO has issued the certificate where in actual fact it refers solely to the standard used. The certification body is the organization that has issued the certificate and has responsibility for the certificate. There are over 1 million certificates issued to ISO 9001 globally.



The role of accreditation bodies:

ISO cooperates with a number of organizations to ensure the credibility of the certificates issued by certification bodies. We work closely with our national member bodies in each country but also with the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) to achieve this. The IAF monitors their members to ensure they comply with international standards and norms when issuing certificates and takes action when this is found not to be the case. As part of this cooperation, accredited certification bodies are obliged to operate their certification in accordance with international standards. When a certification body is accredited by the national accreditation body this adds another level of confidence to their operation. Accredited means the certification body is independently checked to ensure they do operate according to international standards. The organization that usually accredits the certification body is the national accreditation body of the country in which the certificate is issued.



Your specific concern:

Thank you for the link you have provided. From the video, we can see the person holding the certificate that shows the name of the certification body (DQS). I wanted to check on the city council website http://www.nairobicity.go.ke/ to have more details but I was unable to see this information. As mentioned above, as ISO is not involved in the certification of its standard, we therefore recommend you to address your complaint to the certification body who have delivered the certificate to the City Council, DQS. I have searched onto their database of certified organization but I was unable to find the City Council among their client. It might take some time before the information is added to their website, this is why we recommend you to contact directly DQS. The contact details of DQS in Kenya can be found here https://www.dqs-ul.com/e...nternational/kenya.html



I hope the above assists you in some manner however you should need additional clarification please contact me.



Sincerely





Mr. Laurent Charlet

Project Manager, Conformity Assessment

ISO Central Secretariat

1, ch. de la Voie-Creuse

P.O. Box 56

CH-1211 Geneva 20


Tel. + 41 22 749 04 04
Fax + 41 22 733 34 30
E-mail charlet@iso.org

Web www.iso.org


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The Kenya Accreditation Service (KENAS) said on Monday that DQS Kenya, the firm that issued the certification, has not been accredited as an authorised certification office in the country.

“The purported ISO certification issued to the City Council of Nairobi is not valid and therefore is null and void. The council should also not claim this ISO 9001: 2008 certification,” he stated.