The Ghana Standard Authority (GSA) will from January 2019, introduce an import certification for all imported electrical cables into the country, the Director General of GSA, Professor Alex Dodoo has hinted.
Professor Dodoo made this known in an interview, after a meeting with the Consumer Protection Agency (CPA) and the Ghana Electrical Dealers Association (GEDA) to disclose the list of electrical products that have failed or passed its critical parameter tests.
He said, “we are going to do our best that come January, when you buy an electrical product, you will have a mark, which will indicate that we have inspected and endorsed them.”
This is subject to the approval of government. Professor Dodoo noted that from the GSA’s market surveillances, close to 80 percent of all the products sampled are sub-standard.
This confirms the statement by the Fire Service that about 80 percent of all fires in Ghana is caused by electrical faults.
Critical Parameter Test
A total of 45 electrical products failed the critical parameter test, conducted by the GSA,
Products that failed the critical parameter test will be removed from the market and destroyed or recycled as appropriate, Professor Dodoo insisted.
He indicated that there will be more engagements with stakeholders in this space, to further explore other available technologies that can be used to prevent counterfeiting of cables.
He noted that whatever the outcome, it should be the best cost neutral, so that there are no extra charges.
Inspection
“More worryingly, yesterday what we found is that, people were sitting in their house, fixing a piece of metal into an insulator, then labelling it as a cable.”
He added that, the perpetrators had had all types of labels, and were producing tons.
Professor Dodoo noted that the GSA has a whole conference hall full of some of these sub-standard products, adding that, those arrested are currently being processed for court.
On Thursday, a team from the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) and the Ghana Police Service raided a one-storey building in Accra that has been converted into a manufacturing site for the production and distribution of unapproved electrical cables and other products for sale in the country.
Two persons suspected to be Chinese nationals were arrested, for producing unapproved electrical cables, coated with aluminium instead of the usual copper used in manufacturing such cables, were branded as AEI.
In spite of being manufactured in Accra, the products were branded as being approved by relevant bodies in Uganda, Germany, Italy and Britain.
The team retrieved about three truckloads of electrical cables and other electrical products.
Goldstreetbusiness