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The Chief Executive Officer of the Consumer Protection Agency (CPA), Mr Kofi Kapito, has called on the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to adequately resource the institutions in charge of consumer protection. He said this would enable them to step up their performance with regard to food protection for consumers. Mr Kapito said the global world was developing various ways to ensure that food safety was of much importance, however, in Ghana it was quite unfortunate institutions and regulators were not doing enough. He observed that the cholera outbreak that hit the country recently was due to the unhygienic way of handling basic food, the growing of vegetables anywhere and the handling of frozen foods such as poultry and fish. Speaking at a press conference in Accra yesterday, in connection with the World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD) that took place on March 15, Mr Kapito stated that Ghana was a signatory to the United Nations (UN) charter of consumer protection, hence the country must adhere to the principles. According to him, the practice where vegetable growers used waste water to irrigate their vegetables was inappropriate and a threat to the consumer. He also mentioned the unhygienic handling of meat from the abattoirs. �These practices do not conform to international consumption standards,� he said, adding that institutions and regulators must put a stop to such practices immediately. The WCRD is an annual occasion for celebration and solidarity within the international consumer movement. In 1962, a former president of the United States, President John F Kennedy, first outlined the definition of consumer rights. WCRD is an opportunity to promote the basic rights of all consumers and demand that those rights are respected and protected. Touching on the issue of the Ghana Conformity Assessment Programme (G-CAP), Mr Kapito explained that majority of Ghanaians did not understand the benefits of G-CAP, hence the need for them to be educated. That, when done, he said, would enable most people to understand the relevance of the policy and the need for it to be introduced into the Ghanaian system. He said some trade union groups had opposed the idea because they had not completely understood the concept of the G-CAP and its importance as regards the health and safety of Ghanaians. �The G-CAP would prevent the increase of substandard goods on the market and prevent Ghana from being used as a dumping ground,� he said. He urged the Ghanaian consumer to desist from patronising products that obviously had been contaminated. The G-CAP is a new programme that has been introduced by the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) to check and inspect all imports and exports. Under the programme, chemicals, mechanical materials, furniture and textiles, among other goods, would undergo the conformity tests, as well as obtain other certification to obtain customs clearance before being brought into the country.