He said the GSA could do better than it was currently doing since there were still lots of businesses who were not aware of where their businesses fall and how to apply standards to them.

Dr Vasnani said this at the African Partner Pool (APP) Business forum in Accra.

He urged the GSA to update its website regularly and provide more education on standardisation to businesses in the country.

The MD, however, urged businesses who were already aware of standards to keep on improving since the requirements of the International Organisation of standardisation kept changing.

GSA disagrees

The Ag Director, Monitoring and Evaluation at GSA, Mr Winfred H. Tettevi, for his part disagreed with Dr Vasnani, stating that the authority had done enough when it comes to education.

He however, said it was the businesses that had to approach the authority to know what kinds of standards were available for their products and not the other way round.

“We have standards for all kinds of products in the country and if you approach us, we will assist you,” he stated.

He said the authority had capable staff who would give the necessary requirements for all products to meet international standards.

Challenge to SMEs

The Supply Chain Manager of Tullow Ghana Limited, Mr Paul Watson, pointed out that standardisation was a huge challenge to most small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country.

He said that standardisation  had also become a challenge to Tullow since it had curtailed its desire to do business with SMEs in the country.

Mr Watson mentioned that effective standards were key to promoting businesses as it had helped Tullow to define what exactly it wanted.

APP business forum

The APP business forum which is organized by Invest in Africa (IIA) is aimed at bringing buyers and suppliers on the APP portal together to interact.

The forum was on the theme “creating thriving businesses through taxation and quality standards.”

The General Manager for IIA, Mr Sam Brandful, said the forum which is organized twice every year seek to move the relationship between the buyers and suppliers from an online basis to one that people could see who exactly they are dealing with.

He said it also afforded them the opportunity to interact, know each other and form closer business linkages.

“We have realized that we should not just concentrate on the networking but we use it as an opportunity to bring about discussions on business topics and themes that don’t get talked about often,” he stated.

“We all know that, talking about taxes and standards is not the most favorite of most SMEs but we need to get them to understand that paying taxes is not just an obligation but has a purpose,” he added.

APP portal

The African Partner Pool portal is an initiative that aims to close the communication gap between local suppliers and large buying organisations.

It is a searchable on-line directory of validated Ghanaian SMEs from across key sectors and connect international & domestic businesses/buyers/investors with quality local SMEs.

The APP currently has 1574 suppliers, 211 tenders valued at US$ 539m posted, with 45 of this tenders won by APP suppliers.

The value of the tenders won by APP suppliers is US$3.16m, with a success rate of 20 per cent.