Real estate industry players have joined calls for the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) to publish names of substandard electrical cable brands on the Ghanaian market.
The industry fears for the worse should developers continue to use unapproved cables which will ultimately put the lives of people at risk.
A recent inspection by the GSA has revealed that more than 70 per cent of all imported electrical cable brands on the market were substandard and could cause fires.
Also, out of 22 electrical cable brands sampled for laboratory testing, only two, which were manufactured locally, passed the critical safety requirement test for conductor resistance at the GSA Cable Laboratory in Accra.
The GSA is yet to make public the brands that did not make the mark.
But the Executive Secretary of the Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA), Sammy Amegayibor believes the GSA must be swift in naming defaulting brands to save lives.
“I think they have to be very swift with coming out clearly on which cables have been found to be substandard. Sometimes they are being cautious not to incur the wrath of anybody which may take them on legally for tarnishing their image.”
“One thing that the GSA can also do is to at least name the ones that have been confirmed to be good and by that I do not think it will be incurring the wrath of anyone. Because if such companies have passed out as good cables, then it will help identify them while dealing with those found to be substandard,” he added.
Electrical dealers slam GSA over ‘fake cable’ report
Meanwhile the President of the Ghana Electrical Dealers Association (GEDA), Joseph Obeng, has slammed the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) over its report indicating that 70 percent of imported electrical cables into the country are substandard and could cause fires.
The Association’s President, Joseph Obeng, said that the presence of fake cables was an indictment on the GSA’s regulatory standards at the ports, since the Authority shirked its responsibility of checking the influx of these fake cables.
According to Mr. Obeng, indications from the GSA were ill-intentioned “because they [the GSA] have so many other imported cables that have come to their institutions for testing and they have all passed.”
He further held that the report “seemed to portray that all imported cables are not passing the test so it was not in good taste.”
GSA as gatekeepers
Whilst noting that there were some dealers that cut corners, Mr. Obeng said the “onus lies on the Ghana Standards Authority to make sure that we put a stop to this influx of inferior cables.”
He stressed that, “when you bring goods, they [the GSA] have to do the testing before they give the clearance for the goods to leave the port, and so it is an indictment on themselves because, in any case, how were those goods able to go to the market?”
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By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
