Standards Board bares teeth

Sunyani (B/A) Nov. 16 GNA - Members of the general public have been urged not to hesitate to report all complaints on consumable products, foreign or locally manufactured, to the Ghana Standards Board for the necessary sanctions to be imposed.

Mr Charles Amoako, Principal Scientific Officer, Marketing and Public Relations of the Board, gave the advice at the close of a two-day seminar on "national quality infrastructure and the relevance usage of standards" in Sunyani on Thursday.

The seminar, which was held at Sunyani Polytechnic, was part of the Board's outreach programme for tertiary institutions in the country. Mr Amoako stressed that complaints from the public would enable the Board to remove unwholesome and contaminated food products from the market for the safety of consumers.

He advised the public to patronize products that bore the mark and certification of the Board and if possible to report the manufacturer or the company to the Board for appropriate measures to be taken. Mr Amoako warned companies and manufacturers that imitated the Board's logo to desist from the practice because it was working hard to clampdown on the perpetrators.

Mr J.C.T Armah, Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Product Certification Department of GSB, said plans were far advanced for the Board to put before Parliament a new standard bill. The bill, he said, when passed would help the Board to monitor and check the authenticity and validity of the standards of imported products.

Mr Armah explained that even though standards were harmonized, it was vital for Government and all sectors of society to play a collaborative role in standardization in the country. The participants, mostly students, were taken through the relevance of applying standards to national development; importance of metrology to socio-economic development and benefits of quality assurance to industrial development.