Ghanaians Wouldn't Pay More On Imported Goods- PRO For GSA

The Public Relations Officer for the Ghana Standards Authority, Mr. Kofi Amposah Bediako, has cleared the air surrounding reports that from 1st October, 2014, Ghanaians would have to brace themselves and pay more money to purchase imported good. The New Crusading Guide has it in its 8th September edition that the GSA has entered into a contract with the local representatives of Societe General de Surveillance to carry out pre-shipment inspection at a cost to the consumer even though there are Destination Inspection Companies already doing the inspection at a cost. But in an interview with Mr. Amposah Bediako on Peace FM�s midday news, he stated that the destination inspection process was making their work tedious. According to him, under this process officials had to go through the process of inspecting imported goods to find out which ones were good or bad. Under their new rules and regulations, he claims the inspection would be conducted in countries where the imported goods are coming from instead of doing it in Ghana. Through this, goods considered as bad, would not be allowed to be imported into the country, he says. �This conformity access program would give us the opportunity to go outside Ghana and carry out this operation. We have contacted companies with laboratories to conduct the checks according to Ghana�s standard. After this, we would issue certificate of conformity to importers with goods considered good�, he said. Mr. Kofi Amposah Bediako noted that when this process is observed, they would have access to electronic data copies of every item being imported into the country. �Countries like Cote d'ivoire, Nigeria, Indonesia and others are all using this process. If not done, people would import bad goods using Ghana as an entry point�, he stated.