Presenting the report before the joint committees’ session of the assembly, Papa Secka, Director General, Gambia Standards Bureau, commended and thanked the assembly committees for going through the whole report and adopting it.
Secka told National Assembly members that the bureau recognised the need to enhance the capacity of the members of its technical committees and, therefore, convened training workshops on the procedure of standardization and good standardization practice.
These were successfully organised in June 2013 for members of both technical committees and the training activities were delivered by experts drawn from the International Trade Centre, facilitated by the Enhanced Integrated Framework Project of the Ministry of Trade, he said.
The Standards Bureau Director General further informed the joint session of the assembly’s committees that the bureau is a member of the ECOWAS Standards Harmonization Management Committee, along with other standards bodies in the ECOWAS region.
To this end, he added, the following standards were harmonized as “ECOWAS standards in 2013 and these are Ecostand specifications for Rice Grain, Ecostand for maize and Ecostand for palm oil”.
Dilating on development capacity for his staff, Secka said in line with international best practice and procedure for adoption and or development of standards (ISO-IEC Guide 21-1. 2005), the bureau engages relevant stakeholders for the development or adoption of standards as national standards.
This was exemplified by the wide and diverse representation in the Technical Committee for Food Standards and the National Electro Technical Commission for standards in electrical and allied products and services, he said.
The membership in these technical committees was drawn from Government, the private sector, trade and professional association, consumer groups, as well as some independent experts, he further stated.
