The Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, has tasked the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) to commence the verification and metering of the oil produced by the Jubilee partners.
He said the GSA must ensure that all the necessary measures were put in place to subject oil production to measurement for the country to know the actual quantity of oil produced and also ensure that the state was not denied its fair share of oil produced from the Jubilee Fields.
The minister said the exercise should be a collaborative effort among three ministries — Finance and Economic Planning, Energy and Petroleum and Trade and Industry — to ensure that all ambiguities related to the actual oil produced were cleared.
Mr Iddrisu was speaking at the 2014 World Metrology Day celebration organised by the GSA on the theme: “Measurement and the global energy challenge”.
He said the ministry would strengthen the GSA to enable it to implement and enforce its mandate.
Enforce standards
The minister said the just-ended National Economic Forum imposed an obligation on the GSA to enforce standards of products in the country.
That, he said, needed an effective collaboration between the GSA and the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), adding that the two organisations should stop what was seen in the public as a turf war in the discharge of their mandates.
Mr Iddrisu noted that the mandates of the two institutions were clearly stated by the legislative instruments which created them, hence the need for them to comply with the mandates.
He, therefore, urged the GSA and the FDA to ensure that substandard and health-threatening products were not allowed to flood the markets.
Exports
He stated that the GSA had a role to play in ensuring that exporters sent out standard products to satisfy the international market.
Recently, he said, some exporters faced the challenge of rejection by the international markets because they exported substandard products.
Overview
Giving an overview of the Metrology Division of the GSA, the Director of the division, Dr Kwabena Acheampong, explained that its mandate was to verify, calibrate, inspect weights and measure instruments in the country.
In order to effectively carry out its mandate, he said, five Metrology laboratories had been accredited to a standard Known as the ISO/IEC 17025.
The aim of the department, he explained, was to develop a national measurement scheme for industry, science and commerce and ensure fair trade practices geared towards consumer protection.
In a speech read on his behalf, the Executive Director of the GSA, Dr George Ben Crentsil, said the GSA would continue to improve on its performance in the area of metrology to contribute its quota to national development and growth.
