ASSI holds talks with GSA, FDA over concerns of MSEs
The Association of Small Scale Industries (ASSI) on Friday organised a workshop to dialogue with the Ghana Standards Authority and Food and Drugs Authority on their responsiveness to concerns of Micro and Small Scale Enterprises in Ghana.
The workshop, attended by leaders of small scale business associations, would afford participants an opportunity to clarify issues on the requirements for product standards, safety and quality for expansion of the small scale sector and educate the sector players on the requirements of quality assurance among other things.
Mr Richard Tetteh, President of ASSI, explained that the association had embarked on an advocacy to get the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) and Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) to dialogue more with the small scale sector, with the view of getting the major institutions to further reflect on how best the concerns of micro and small scale enterprises (MSEs) could be addressed.
He said the ASSI appreciated the efforts carried out by the GSA and FDA on their own in running programmes aimed at training small scale entrepreneurs as well as fostering development for the sector.
Mr Tetteh said the workshop would afford members the opportunity to gain deeper understanding of the requirements of both institutions, especially the FDA, to pass the quality test for their products.
He complained that most MSEs were confronted with several difficulties, including bureaucracies in the registration processes of products and delays at the FDA during quality testing of their products, because they lacked understanding of the basic requirements for passing the quality test of their product.
Mr Tetteh said a better networking and collaboration with those institutions would help improve upon product quality adding; “we sincerely believe the collaboration between the small scale sector and the two institutions need to be further developed in the wider interest of the Ghanaian economy”.
Mr Kofi Essel, Head of Food Inspectorate, FDA, said technical support from consultants, provision of training for factories, facility license, and assignation of officers to MSE facilities were the core assistances FDA would be rendering to all MSEs in the regions.
He said: “We will not compromise public health because we would want to promote a private industry, which is why we would follow our four enforcement procedures thus; registration, licensing, marketing activities and monitoring evaluations carefully in reaching out to MSEs to ensure the safeness of foods, drugs and medicines to consumers and nations at large”.
Mr Frank Kofi Nagetey, Deputy Executive Director, Commercial Services, GSA, said the authority was committed to ensuring that producers and manufactures in the small scale business sector complied with quality and safety standards requisite for both local consumption and for export.
He said this would bring in more foreign exchange to complement that of traditional export incomes for national development.
Mr Nagetey encouraged the association to open branches in the regions to make their collaborations with the regulatory institutions easy.
He said Ghana must redeem its image by promoting high quality products and standardised goods for the global market.
Source: GNA