Ghana Standards Authority clarifies CAP
If Ghana fails to implement the Conformity Assessment Programme (CAP), the country will become a dumping ground for cheap and inferior products, the Executive Director of the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), Dr George B. Crentsil, has cautioned.
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He said if the country failed to join the league of countries operating the CAP from October 1, 2014, Ghana would become a potential destination for inferior products to the detriment of the health and safety of its citizens.
“Almost all the sub-Saharan nations have the CAP in place to check fake goods and if we fail to do the same, we only will allow importers to maximise profits that may compromise standards,” he cautioned.
Dr Crentsil expressed the worry when the GSA clarified some misunderstandings associated with the CAP at a news conference in Accra yesterday.
CAP
The GSA introduced the CAP, under which products to be shipped to Ghana would be inspected by the Authority’s service providers in the exporting country.
Where the products conform to standards, a certificate of conformity would be issued to an importer and a copy sent to the GSA in advance before the consignment arrives in the country.
However, if a product does not meet specified requirements, a non-conformity report will be issued and the exporters on that basis will be barred from exporting to Ghana.
Dr Crentsil stated that since the launch of the CAP, some importers had embraced it as a good programme that needed speedy implementation but there were others who had called for extension to allow for education of its members.
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He said the overriding reason for introducing the CAP was to stop substandard and fake products from entering the Ghanaian market.
That, he said, would help to protect the health and safety of consumers, as well as protect the environment.
“Standards are applied all over the world to ensure that products, whether locally produced or imported into a country, are safe for consumption, thereby protecting health and the environment,” Dr Crentsil said.
He said countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland and others we admire so much due to the quality of their products achieved that due to their conformity to standards.
Eliciting stakeholders’ concerns
Dr Crentsil said having listened to the concerns of all stakeholders, the authority had decided to defer the programme implementation to October 1, as recommended by the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
“This is to allow further engagement of stakeholders in discussion and sensitisation programmes to ensure that issues about the CAP are clearly explained and understood.
He said the GSA had already started running educational programmes in all the regions and expressed optimism that the programme would clear all misconceptions about the CAP.