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Despite the economic challenges facing the country, the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) is on the verge of charging assessment fees on goods and services, prior to their shipment into the country, with the final consumer expected to bear the brunt of the new charges. The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) and Destination Inspection Committees (DICs) are already charging similar fees. The GSA, under its Conformity Assessment Programme (G-CAP), scheduled to take off on October 1, 2014, according to documents sighted by The Chronicle, will charge several fees in the pre-shipment exercise, in the areas of verification, registration and inspection. For instance, in the area of verification, the GSA intends to charge an amount ranging from US$275 to US$300, depending on which route the importer uses. With regards to registration, the importer is expected to pay US$375 for the first 15 product/line items, with a further US$20 for every additional product/line item above 15 products/line item. The inspection of used vehicles would also attract a fee of US$300 per vehicle. The fees are payable in advance, and regardless of whether after the assessment of the goods, the exporter does not provide the information or document necessary for the final issuance of the Certificate of Conformity (CoC), or even if the exporter decides to abandon the shipment. The above-mentioned fees, according to the policy, do not include laboratory testing, sampling of bulk shipments or containerised bulk cargos, or sealing of containers, as all these services would be charged separately to the client. The Product Conformity Assessment is a solution designed to ensure that specific products meet the requirements of the technical regulations and standards set by the importing country. It involves checking whether goods measure up the requirements of international standards, technical regulations or other specifications set by the importing country. The contracting company for this pre-shipment exercise is the local representative of Soci�t� G�n�ral de Surveillance SA (SGS), despite the existence of the DICs, which, by law, are also inspecting goods and services at a fee. The contract gives absolute monopoly to the SGS. Parliament is yet to sanction this policy, but it appears the GSA is in a hurry to implement it, after giving October 1, 2014 as the date for the commencement of the programme. About a fortnight ago, the management of the GSA, The Chronicle understands, engaged the Parliamentary Select Committee on Trade and Industry on the new initiative. It is, however, not clear whether the committee had satisfied itself with the initiative, and was willing to push it through the plenary for consideration and subsequent approval. Parliament, currently, is on recess, and it is unclear when it would reconvene, as expansion works are being carried in the Chamber to accommodate all the 275 law makers. Quite recently, despite the existence of the DICs, the FDA introduced a new regulation that requires all suppliers of goods to pay a fee of US$20,000 for the inspection of the goods at the country of origin. With this, the country now has three institutions carrying out the same work, with two (GSA and FDA) doing pre-shipment inspection, verification and registration of goods and services, while the third (DICs) does same at the local ports, all for a fee. The conflicting roles between the FDA and the GSA seems to be creating uneasiness among importers and exporters, with some arguing that the new measure would impact negatively on the economy, due to the likely collapse of small scale businesses. �When this measure comes to [the] fore, it is the consumer who will suffer the more, because all the cost incurred by the importer and the exporter will passed unto him or her. �In the event that they are unable to buy the goods and services imported into the country, the activities of businesses will slow down, and the economy will be the end loser,� noted an importer, who did not want his name to be mentioned, but was privy to the above information. Ghana, by law, abandoned the pre-shipment inspection of goods in the 1990s, and introduced Destination Inspection Companies (DICs) with scanners at all ports to carry out the inspection and assessment of goods for a fee. But, with the GSA�s Conformity Assessment Programme (G-CAP), the country has been taken aback, with consumers expected to bear the brunt of the new policy.