Sub-standard products stifling growth of local businesses; we‘ll enforce laws on quality – GSA Boss

Efforts are being intensified towards ensuring zero tolerance for substandard products in the country.

This follows the coming into force of the National Quality Policy championed by the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA).

Director-General of the Authority, Prof. Alexander Dodoo said his outfit is committed to ensuring that the quality of made-in-Ghana products is not compromised to protect compliant businesses.

“In the absence of the laws, there are the difficult ones who do not want to comply. Because we do not have the law, a good business sticking to the law has a high cost of doing business. If a competitor is cutting corners and selling at half-price, it will take the market from you. How fair is that?”

“So really, if you enforce, good businesses thrive. The enforcement must be a level-playing field and so if you put this burden on the Ghanaian industry, and you allow sub-standard imports, you will be killing the industry. So enforcement we shall”, he said.

Cabinet, in May 2022, approved the National Quality Policy to operationalize a National Quality Infrastructure.

The system spells out how goods and services must be produced to meet acceptable standards by all sectors of the economy, whether private or public.

Prof. Alexander Dodoo was speaking on the Citi Business Festival on-air series on Friday, on the topic “National Quality Policy and System Change”.

He emphasised the need for local businesses to prioritise the production of standardised goods and services in order to increase exports and boost industry growth.

“Quality is supercritical. We have a lot of hardworking Ghanaians producing all sorts of products, but they are not able to trade very well because they do not have the quality that is needed – consistency and reliability. So if they want to sell to the market and your product does not meet the required standard for importing, they are rejected.”

The entire month of June is dedicated to business on Citi TV and 97.3 Citi FM.

The Citi Business Festival is an extensive program of business events and on-air activities providing inspiration, business ideas, and information to persons who are starting, building, or growing their businesses.

The on-air series will air on the Citi Breakfast Show on 97.3 Citi FM every weekday, with the Friday editions dedicated to ‘Precision Quality’ discussions.

ABSA Bank is the main sponsor of the Citi Business Festival 2022 and is supported by MTN Momo and MTN Business, IT Consortium and the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), and GIRSAL.
Source: citinewsroom.com