Procure made in Ghana products for infrastructural projects
The Director-General of the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), Prof. Alex Dodoo, has urged the government to make conscious efforts to procure made in Ghana products for major infrastructural projects this year to help foster accelerated development.
He said in situations where products made in Ghana had proven to be of superior quality to that of the imported ones, such as cables and roofing sheets, the government and the private sector must deliberately patronise and promote the local manufacturers to help them to properly establish and expand.
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“The situations where made in Ghana products are of superior quality than that of imported ones is worrying”, Prof. Dodoo said at a lunch organised to appreciate and reward customers of Tropical Cable and Conductor Limited in Tema last week.
The ceremony, which was the second of its kind, was organised by the cables’ manufacturer to motivate distributors across the country to help drive the growth of the company by serving as external ambassadors for its products.
Making the effort
Prof. Dodoo said although the World Trade Organisation (WTO) said imported products must not be treated any different from locally manufactured ones, the government through the GSA, would insist that any imported products at least met the Ghana standard.
“We believe that there are so many ways to support the local industry to grow and one of them is to examine how we do our public procurement by demanding that most of the products are actually made in Ghana,” he said.
He added that countries all over the world were now positioning their local industries ahead of their counterparts abroad in a deliberate attempt to create more jobs and improve the lives of their citizens.
As a result, he said, Ghana would not be in isolation when the public began to embrace made in Ghana products and prioritise them over imported ones to deliberately protect Ghanaian companies.
“And if people say we are bias why not?” he asked.
“We have to create jobs and we have no excuse because if we don’t create jobs that would help develop the country, we will remain where we are and the frustration in the system is high because people are not getting the jobs that are paying the monies that would give them the hope that they can save and build a house,” he said.
He said to help grow Ghanaian businesses, the GSA would do everything possible to make them more competitive and profitable within the laws of the WTO to ensure that the companies did not suffer undue competition from imported products.
“Where the qualities are identical, we will promote made in Ghana over any other products,” he said.
Enforcement
Touching on enforcement of the country’s standards, Prof. Dodoo said that had been the challenge in the past because studies by the authority had confirmed that most of the imported electrical cables were inferior to that of the locally manufactured ones.
“It’s a fact that most of the imported products do not meet the standards of made in Ghana products and not just in the area of cables, but also certain pharmaceuticals,” he said.
As a result, Prof. Dodoo said the GSA had put in place a system that would check the quality of products from their country of origin before they arrived at the country’s ports to ensure that only quality products entered the market.
“All cables coming in now are supposed to have import certification in that we look at their process because the situation where people bring them in and we are forced to export them back has proven to be problematic,” he said.
Addressing the distributors of the company at the lunch event, the Head of Marketing of Tropical Cable and Conductors Limited, Mr Michael Abbey, assured them of the company’s resolve to maintain its high standards and remain the most preferred cable manufacturer in the country.
The event was also used to reward some outstanding distributors of the company with the ultimate winner receiving a KIA Bongo truck as his prize.