GSA, FDA Urged MSEs …To Intensify Industry Policies

By: Chris Twum
Email:[email protected]
Stakeholders of the Association of Small Scale Industries (ASSI) have been called on by regulators of the industry Ghana Standard Authority (GSA) and Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) to enhance their policies of doing business in their various sectors so as they can be competitive.

This came to light at a workshop dubbed: 'Making Regulatory Institutions More Responsive to Micro and Small Enterprises Agenda'. The workshop was supported by Business Sector Advocacy Challenge (BUSAC) Fund.

They dialogued with the GSA and FDA on their responsiveness to concerns of Micro and Small Scale Enterprises (MSEs) in Ghana.

The workshop, attended by leaders of small scale business associations, afforded participants  opportunities 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.

The Deputy Executive Director, Commercial Services, of GSA, Mr. Frank Kofi Nagetey, observed that 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.

The President of ASSI, Mr. Richard Tetteh, 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.

MrTetteh 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'.