The Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) and the Ghana Automobile Distributors Association (GADA) have held a meeting to discuss and address concerns regarding the implementation of the Automotive Vehicle Homologation and Conformity Assessment Programme.

Homologation is the process of certifying vehicles or a particular component of a vehicle that meets the established requirements of various statutory regulatory bodies.

During the meeting, representatives of GADA appealed to the Authority to reconsider the Homologation fee, taking into consideration the negative impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on businesses and the fact that the Ghanaian market for new vehicles was significantly small.

The Director-General of the GSA, Prof. Alex Dodoo, on his part, said the Homologation fee should be discussed further for all parties to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

He called for more engagements between the GSA, GADA, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Public Procurement Authority.

"These engagements will, among other things, ensure that government makes Homologation certificate a criterion in government procurement of vehicles," Prof. Dodoo noted.

The two parties came to a consensus that vehicles which were imported into the country to be transited to other countries should not go through the homologation process.

The deliberations concluded with an agreement that the GSA Mark of Conformity be placed on the vehicles that had gone through the rudiments of homologation as an endorsement that the vehicle met the health, safety and environmental specifications prescribed by the vehicle and homologation standards developed by the Authority.

In November 2019, the GSA developed and published 26 standards to regulate the growing automotive industry in Ghana.