Sierra Leone News: Standards Bureau Certifies Gitex Rice & Sugar
By Stephen V. Lansana
Manager of the Product Certification Department, Sierra Leone Standards Bureau (SLSB), Tamba Kamanda said on Thursday October 24, 2019, that the rice and sugar sold at the Gitex Store at Cline Town are good for consumption.
He made this comment at the regular press briefing organized by the Ministry of Information and Communications in Freetown. The comment from the team of the Sierra Leone Standards Bureau was triggered by newspaper report about the discovery of alleged substandard rice and sugar at a store along Ross Road in Freetown.
Kamanda said that they had conducted laboratory analysis of rice and sugar samples collected from the Gitex Store at Cline Town, adding that they have certified the two products as fit for human consumption.
He said after organoleptic inspection and further laboratory analysis were conducted and they proved that the rice and sugar were fit for human consumption.
“It is very difficult for you to ascertain the quality of rice or sugar just by it looks. There are processes involved before laboratory analysis. Even in sample collection, it should be randomly collected using instruments that should not infect the samples,” Mr. Kamanda said.
He said for products like grains to be declared substandard, it should be proven empirically, adding that journalists should always crosscheck with the SLSB when reporting stories of such, “because only laboratory analysis can give informed judgement about such products”. He said the SLSB was challenged and lacked the capacity to cover every inch of the ground, noting that the porosity of the borders was another problem.
He therefore, urged journalists to cooperate with the Bureau, especially information sharing to ensure that the importation of substandard goods into Sierra Leone is minimized.
Deputy Director of the SLSB, Mr. Amadu Jogor Bah said despite the challenges they had always worked with line ministries like the Food Safety Unit at the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, which was responsible for surveillance on food products.
Earlier on the Executive Director of the SLSB, Professor Thomas Yormah gave a brief background of the institution. He said that the Bureau was a quality promoting and mainstreaming institution based on solution delivery in metrology, standardization, conformity testing and certification.
“One of the key mandates of the Standards Bureau is the protection of human health, the economy and the environment from the negative impacts of substandard products. We do this by ensuring, as much as it is possible through our quality Inspection regime, that no substandard product is imported into Sierra Leone,” he affirmed, adding that the Bureau was supposed to carry out quality inspection at all landing borders but unfortunately they were only visible at the Queen Elizabeth the II Quay and Gbalamuya on the Guinea-Sierra Leone border point.
He said as a result, substandard goods would come into the country via all the other entry points, including Lungi Airport, Jendema and a host of other unofficial entry points on the porous borders. The Director also complained that the Bureau was not given adequate space to do meaningful quality inspection at the Queen Elizabeth the II Quay, adding that 60 to 70 percent of the containers would leave the port premises without undergoing quality inspection.
