The board chairman of the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), Professor Felix Mills-Robertson, yesterday appealed to Ghanaians to recognise the importance of standards and demand same in their transactions.
He said standards were not only important but also constituted the invisible thread that wove the fabric of progress.
“In the realm of healthcare, they are the guiding principles that ensure the safety, efficacy, and accessibility of medical services and products. By adhering to these standards, we guarantee that the medicines we consume, the treatments we receive, and the technologies we rely on are of the highest quality,” he emphasised.
Prof. Mills-Robertson made the call during the celebration and flag raising ceremony of this year’s World Standards Day held in Accra yesterday.
This year’s celebrations was on the theme: “Shared vision for a better world, standards for SDGs with focus on SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being)”.
He said the time had come for Ghanaians to demand that government, institutions, and industries prioritised the implementation of standards that protected their health in order to enhance their quality of life.
This pivotal theme resonates deeply with our vision of a world where the well-being and health of every individual are prioritised and protected.
Professor Mills-Robertson noted that adhering to standards, guaranteed that the medicines consumed, the treatments given, and the technologies relied on were of the highest quality.
He explained that the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG3) was not merely a goal but a solemn promise we make to humanity.
“It is a commitment to leave no one behind, to ensure that every person, regardless of their location or circumstances, has access to quality healthcare. Standards play a pivotal role in fulfilling this promise. They enable us to create health systems that are efficient, equitable, and responsive to the needs of diverse communities,” he concluded.
On her part, the Director of Standards at the GSA, Ms Joyce Okoree, noted that a world without standards would be full of chaos, social imbalances, collapsed businesses and failed communities where individuals only looked out for personal gains and profit.
She said standards provided a fair playing field for all businesses and for consumers to get value for money in any exchange.
Ms Okoree noted that the SDGs could only be achieved through the collaboration of many public and private partnerships and the used of all available tools such as international standards and conformity assessment.
The Director-General of the GSA, Professor Alex Dodoo, said the GSA had developed and built new labs, including AC and refrigerator test lab, new equipment for petroleum products.
In addition, he said the authority had beefed up its capacity for food and agric products testing, as well as a new cement labs among the host of others.
He said the GSA had employed about 300 Trading Standards Inspectors to help enforce standards nationwide as well as ensuring that goods imported and produced in the country were standardised.
BY CLIFF EKUFUL
