By: Nyima Sillah
The Gambia Standard Bureau on Tuesday held a consultative meeting with the objective of addressing social issues like quality management system, hygiene management system, food safety, energy manage system and others.
Speaking at the meeting, Papa Secka director general of Standard Bureau, said “It is important to give attention to food handling practices, employee hygiene practices, sanitation facilities and prevention of chemical hazards.”
As an agency, they are the only national standard body and therefore it’s their mandate to develop standards for Gambians, he said.
“The government has to facilitate the adoption of standards and promote its use so that they can get of services, quality of goods that deserves to Gambians. The Gambian standard bureau also needs to demonstrate that its own system is accurate by calibrating to a higher standard,” he said.
“Our challenges are regulators most adopt best international practice of referencing and using national standard as publish by the TGSB for transparency reasons, good governance and good regulatory practice”, he added.
He urged policy makers to reflect on how they use standard, which will have developed the standards and reflect on good governance.
Lamin Jaiteh, Food Safety Association Principal Scientific Officer, said they are mandated to official control of food safety and quality.
“Also we ensure that the foods that are stable are safe and secure”, he added.
He also said one of their biggest challenges is registering establishment but the regulations they need to license them is not finalize yet.
“Another challenge is we do not have all the legal tools that we need to establish our mandate”, he added.
Lamane Dione, Consumer protection of the Gambia (CPAG), said: the consumer’s problems are everybody’s problem that’s why CPAG is always trying to interact with the authorities and stakeholders to make sure that the rights of the consumers are respected and considered.
ICE office, Ministry of interior, NEA, UTG, Gambia Quality Association and NAQA were all invited to the consultative meeting base on their expert knowledge.