By Alpha Abu
The Speaker of Parliament Dr Abbas Bundu on Thursday 18th March 2021 instructed the Committee on Trade and Industry to look into the operations of the Sierra Leone Standard Bureau to ascertain the factual state of affairs at the institution that is charged with the responsibility of conducting quantity and quality tests on goods.
This was in reaction to several issues bordering on testing products from water packaging to field work raised by Member of Parliament Abdul Karim Kamara of the opposition APC, representing Constituency 059 in Kambia district under the opposition APC party.
Reacting to those concerns raised in parliament, the Executive Director of Standard Bureau Professor Thomas Yormah said the institution has been doing its best to execute its responsibilities in the face of challenges it encounters in the field. He told Politico that they have in many instances gone to supposed addresses of water packaging companies only to learn that they had relocated to unknown destinations, and with just two operational vehicles they find it extremely tasking to trace them. Professor Yormah said some 200 water companies are believed to be operating across the country but only about forty are registered, making it difficult for the bureau to carry out its work.
According to Prof. Yormah, Standard Bureau receives samples of food and other products from businesses upon instructions by their related regulatory agencies for tests after which the bureau gives the results to the businesses for onward submission to the bodies regulating them and that the bureau can present the report of a test result upon request by the regulating agency. He asserted that the laboratories they have at the Bureau are well resourced and that with all his years in the university where tests were being done, he would never be part of any questionable testing system.
The bureau’s testing laboratories Manager, Yusuff Sesay explained the rigorous procedures they observe in testing commodities and said there is no loophole to compromise the results as all information bearing the customer’s identity is stripped off a product before reaching the lab. He said the facility is well equipped to international standards and explained that they take an entire week to test a food product to make sure the result they provide at the end is accurate.
He said the chemicals applied in the testing are quite expensive with the fees charged per test in most instances falling short of even recovering the actual cost of all the chemicals applied during the process.
Politico understands that recently the Standards Bureau was part of a team that included representatives of Port Health, ONS, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Police, that witnessed the destruction and dumping of expired goods in six sea cargo containers measuring four twenty feet and two forty feet respectively.
According to the Manager Destination Landing at the Standard Bureau, Mohamed Osman Bah, the items in those containers that were dumped included beer, fruit juice, condensed milk and cream concentrates. The expired products were first crushed and then dumped at secluded locations to avoid the possibility of scavenging.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online (24/03/21)
