Uniformed staff of the Ghana Standards Authority are expected to be in various business centres and markets in June as part of initiatives by the authority to enforce trading standards.
Known as the trading standards inspectors, the over 300 officers of the authority will be deployed to various market centres, pump stations, production hubs and other businesses across the sixteen regions of the country.
Comprising190 males and 121 females, the inspectors have been tasked to ensure traders use accurate weight measuring tools like scales and meters to promote standardized goods on the market.
This comes after months of intensive training at the Police Training School in Koforidua in the Eastern Region.
In an interview with Luv Business, Head of Enforcement at the Ghana Standards Authority, George Kojo Anti, said the move is an implementation of Act 1078 which mandates the authority to strictly enforce the trade standard protocols.
“Their job is to ensure that as consumers we are well protected in terms of the products we purchase,” he noted.
The officers are expected to be in either a brown long or short-sleeved shirt with four patched pockets, embossed with the logo and official name of the standards authority.
It will be complemented with a blue trousers and a cap and name tags of the officers.
“So the inspectors will be given warrant which would detail their specific duties and areas of operation. So, if one has a warrant to inspect factories, they will have no business at say a fuel pump station,” Mr. Anti said.
The Ghana Standards authority on May 20, 2024 embarked on a nationwide campaign on World Metrology Day where they sensitized traders on the need to recalibrate their scales and other measuring tools to the standardized measurements.
But the authority observed low understanding of the significance of having a verified and standardized measuring tool.
“The traders did not also know about how their trading activities are affected by not using measuring tools. So you’d realized they could be running at a loss or even be cheating the customers,” Mr. Anti added.
It is however cautioning the public against any breaches of their standards regulations as perpetrators would be made to face the rigors of the law.
Credit: Emmanuel Bright Quaicoe