43.3% Imported electrical cable brands unlicensed — GSA
The Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) has disclosed that 43.3 per cent of imported electrical cables sampled for testing are unlicensed.
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Out of the 33 electrical cable brands purchased and tested by the authority from the market in Accra, Tamale and Kumasi, only five had been previously tested and certified to be sold on the market.
The remaining 28 electrical cable brands were unlicensed and dealers of these products were selling them illegally.
According to the GSA, 67 companies have been registered in the last three years to import electrical products. These companies have presented 193 electrical cable samples from 58 different brands for testing within that period, but during a nationwide market surveillance, only five of the 33 brands purchased out of the 58 known brands had gone through the required tests and were certified to be sold.
The Director General of the GSA, Prof. Alex Dodoo, told the Graphic Business in an interview that “some brands were represented by different sizes and none of them passed one and failed the others, failures were across all sizes for each particular brand”.
He explained that an alarming 87.5 per cent of the samples tested failed the critical tests for conductor resistance and cross sectional area.
“If the conductor resistance is higher than the maximum acceptable value, the temperature of the conductor rises and if the temperature is sustained over a period of time, the insulating material melts which may result in fire and also a rise in power consumption”.
“The conductor resistance varies inversely as the cross sectional area (R= 1/A), therefore if the cable size is smaller than the required marked size, it results in higher conductor resistance value and subsequently causes high temperatures in the conductor which leads to melting of the insulating material and this may also lead to fires”, Dr Dodoo told the paper.
The GSA has indicated that the market surveillance would be sustained to rid the market of substandard products while import certification for electrical cables would begin immediately and spread to other high risk goods.
Fake cables cause fires
The Deputy Director of Public Relations at the Ghana National Fire Service, Mr Billy Anaglatey, reacting to the upsurge of fake electrical cables flooding the market, told the paper that most domestic fires could be attributed to the use of inferior wiring and defective electrical materials for buildings.
He said an alarming 80 per cent of all domestic fires in the country were caused by the use of substandard electrical cables and switches for wiring buildings.
“Substandard electrical cables are the major cause of domestic fires in the country, about 80 per cent of all the domestic fires we have recorded can be linked to the use of such inferior products and even these days, the traders will warn you before they sell them to you but because of cost, some people still buy them and that is why some newly built houses which are not yet occupied are catching fires”, he added. — GB
