WACOMP-Ghana, GSA trains SMEs on production of hand sanitisers

The West-Africa Competitiveness Programme in Ghana (WACOMP – Ghana), funded by the European Union (EU) and implemented by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), on Wednesday, 22 July 2020, organised an online training on the national standard for hand sanitisers.

The training was organised in collaboration with the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) and aimed at promoting national requirements for alcohol-based hand sanitisers’ production.

Over 50 Ghanaian Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) willing to produce high quality hand sanitisers for the national market registered for the training.

Chief Technical Advisor for the project, Charles Kwame Sackey, stressed that although there are many alcohol-based sanitisers are on the market, not all of them are safe for consumers.

“With the EU support and our collaboration with national quality agencies like the GSA, we hope to help Ghana to produce locally high-quality alcohol- based sanitisers in large quantities,” Mr Sackey said.

Mrs Francisca Frimpong from the Food, Chemistry and Material Standards Department of the GSA explained in detail the Good Manufacturing Practices, the Product Certification Requirements and checklists for producing alcohol-based hand sanitisers.

She emphasised the importance of GS 1303:2020 on specification for alcohol-based hand sanitisers, developed through a partnership between GSA and two UNIDO implemented projects, WACOMP Ghana and the Global Quality and Standards Programme (GQSP), funded by the Swiss Secretariat of Economic Affairs (SECO).

Head of Standards at the GSA, Joyce Okoree called on companies to contact the GSA for any information on how to produce products compliant with the approved standard.

Due to the rising number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Ghana, WACOMP Ghana said it will continue to support the fight against COVID-19 by strengthening cosmetics clusters producers’ capacities to produce high quality alcohol-based hand sanitisers.