The Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) has shut down Fenice Metal Technology Company, a Chinese electrical cable and copper rod manufacturing plant in Tsopoli-Bueko in the Ningo-Prampram District in the Greater Accra Region for operating without proper certification.
The GSA found the company to be operating without certification and their products also lacked important information, including product batch numbers, date of manufacture and expiry and the name and address of the producer.
According to the GSA, the company was also deceitful about the origin of its products by labelling them as products manufactured in Turkey, China and Nigeria before selling them to the public.
The management, however, claimed that the company had applied for certification and was awaiting response from the authority.
The violations were discovered during a market sweep operation by the GSA’s officers aimed at removing substandard and inferior products from the Ghanaian market to prevent causing significant harm to consumers.
Speaking to the press, Head of Enforcement at the GSA, Mr. George Anti, who led the operation, explained that the swoop was on the back of intelligence gathered by the authority following ECG’s visit to the factory where it was discovered that it was operating on an illegal electricity connection to evade paying for proper tariffs.
“From the work that we do we have established that when manufacturers are committing such offences, they are carried out in pairs.
“So if a company is operating without paying tariffs and using an illegal connection to steal power from the state, then, of course, it goes without saying that they would, most likely than not, be committing other offences,” he explained.
Mr. Anti described such activities by any company as potentially catastrophic because if their products were substandard, they could cause a fire outbreak, leading to the loss of property and most importantly, lives.
He added that although the authority wanted to promote trade, its ultimate goal was to protect consumers.
He also said their operations could be detrimental to the socioeconomic development of the country as it had began to trade on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
“We are moving into an era when we are trading under the AfCFTA and getting products from all sorts of places coming onto our market while ours will go to other people’s markets so we must make sure they meet standards and are safe, not just for use but fit for purpose as well,” Mr. Anti said.
Mr. Anti said under the GSA Act (Act 2022), there were a number of penalties that had been prescribed by law to be used as punishment for such activities with the lowest hanging fruit being administrative penalty which began from 1000 penalty units
He, therefore, affirmed that the authority would apply the full rigours of the law following the conclusions of investigations, including test results of the samples taken, to serve as deterrence to others and ensure such activities were nipped in the bud.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com