By Francis H. Murray
The Sierra Leone Standards Bureau (SLSB) on Wednesday held a meeting with the management of the Commodities Trading Company (CTC) Limited, one of the leading importers of Sierra Leone’s staple food - rice.
The objective of the engagement with the management of the company, according to the Bureau, was to explain the rationale and essence of the current "fairness-in-trade" drive to ensure that the buying public gets value for their money for "all goods and services.
Professor Thomas Yormah, Executive Director of SLSB, explained at the meeting that his institution was the government agency charged with the responsibility to protect the health, the economy and the environment of Sierra Leone and Sierra Leoneans from the adverse effects of the consumption or use of substandard goods and services.
"Goods and services can be substandard if they are not of the right quality and if they are not of the prescribed quantity. These markers are based on our adopted gazetted national standards and anything that does not meet those proscriptions is substandard,” he was quoted saying, adding that the SLSB’s work does not only help save the economy, it also helps to enhance fair trade and just business practices.
Professor Yormah said the meeting was geared towards creating a dialogue with CTC to ensure that there was value for money and fair trade. He reiterated that SLSB was determined to ensure that "there is fairness-in-trade" and that the buying public gets value for their money for "all goods and services and not necessarily just for rice and sugar”.
He also admonished CTC to ensure the presence of SLSB staff and other stakeholders at bagging of commodities and goods, to give additional confidence to the buying public. He noted that the process would be extended to liquid-based goods as well as fabrics and would be rolled-out to include traditional statutory calibration and verification of weighing and measuring instruments as well as the Quality Surveillance of goods used in the general trade sector.
Responding, Mr. Khalil Hallomy, Deputy Managing Director of CTC, commended the SLSB for giving them the opportunity to narrate their own side of the story. He said that the CTC imports and sells rice in the Western Area, noting that his company does not have distribution centres in the provinces.
"We receive two types of operations during the importation stage. We receive bagged supply and also bag the rice at the Quay. We have scales to ensure that clients weigh the rice before it is transported and they have the right to reject any bag that they are not satisfied with," he assured, adding that CTC is only responsible at the point of sale.
The CTC Deputy MD however complained that three shops were recently caught impersonating his company by re-bagging rice into CTC branded bags.
Mr. Frank Martin, Manager of the Metrology Department of SLSB, said that they agency embarked on the verification exercise following complaints from the public and the Ministry of Trade, under whose instruction they conducted the verification exercise.
Martin added that the verification discovered that some shops didn't have scales to weigh bagged rice and that some were also tampering with bagged CTC rice during the period of transportation from the stores to market places.
It was resolved at the meeting that the CTC should work out modalities to ensure that the brand’s image is protected by communicating with SLSB on arrivals of loose cargoes and by also alerting SLSB about planned bagging exercise, so that SLSB can be represented during the exercise.
The company was also urged to extend its delivery services to the provinces and to provide scales for customers that trade in at least 1,000 bags of rice a week as well as help in sensitizing their customers about the need to have scales in their shops and stores.
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