By Alpha Abu
On Monday 22 March 2021 I quietly went past the gates of the Sierra Leone Standard Bureau on Kelsey road, off Ferry Junction at Kissy in the east of Freetown. I was honouring an appointment for me to be furnished with in-depth information about just how this all important institution functions. Since it was established in 2003 I don’t think many of us have had a clearer picture of how the Bureau operates or just how it’s very daily work could have a telling effect on the health and wellbeing of people living in the country. A lot has been said about Standards Bureau, from different perspectives; some have been critical of their work out of genuine concerns. Some criticisms though could be borne out of ignorance.
I somehow found the Executive Director Professor Thomas Yormah and other top management figures very cooperative as I went about asking questions on the nature of the work the institution undertakes. The Professor in particular was so open to my enquiries and would with no hesitation respond to me directly or would ask one of his staff whose department was directly related to the specific clarifications I wanted.
I found the workers there to be passionate just like their boss about what they do even though I realised they face challenges in executing their responsibilities. Take the case of the numerous water producing companies in the country. In an ideal situation, the Bureau should just collect random samples of the products the water companies sell and take them to their laboratories for tests. But Standard Bureau finds it extremely difficult to locate some of the companies who keep changing addresses ostensibly trying to evade the Electricity and Water Regulatory Commission (EWRC) for not registering their businesses, an act that is directly linked with operational compliance issues. There are just two vehicles for an institution whose operations are largely out in the field. We’ve heard lately the difficulties the Water Commission has to contend with in dealing with the water producers.
The Bureau’s laboratories are always busy with tests as I found out. Every department at the institution is important and vital to the smooth operations of the place, but the laboratories represent the nerve –centre of the institution. The Manager for Testing Laboratories Yusuf Sesay took me through the rudiments of his unit.
Generally, regulatory agencies send those they deal with to take their products to the laboratories for what is called Product Conformity Testing. And this was where I also learnt that quality test here is a broader term that also scientifically includes testing of the quantity. To put it simply, the litres or grams which in the very sense deal with quantity are all part of what they generically refer to as quality testing. According to Sesay, when a client comes with a product, the Service Registration Unit (SRU) receives it and then removes all affixed labels or identification information.
Personnel in the SRU, who are independent and answerable only to the Executive Director, attach a code to the product before sending it to the laboratories. This action is to make sure that technicians conducting the tests would not even have an idea whose product was being subjected to examination. Foods have to go through the Food Chemistry laboratory for a day or two and with the greater duration of the testing period taking place in the Food Microbiology laboratory. Throughout all this, reagents and other tools are applied, and all the set parameters duly observed.
Sesay said contrary to the expectations of some of their clients, solid and liquid foods including water, take up to ten working days to complete the testing regime.
Impartiality and confidentiality procedures are strictly followed and results of a test cannot be divulged to irrelevant parties. The Bureau follows third party conformity and has no special interest in the producer and acts as a bridge between the producer and the regulator.
However, the Bureau can provide a test result to a business regulator upon official request by statutory order as in the case of EWRC. Sesay explained how some clients take the results to their regulators without even knowing that they failed. Upon realising that, they would come again to the lab for another round of tests as instructed by their regulatory agencies until the correct result is attained or else they cannot be registered by the regulator. And this is where one begins to see the reason why many water producing companies are not registered because they either failed the test or are dead scared about doing one, because of the unhygienic conditions at some of those places.
They continue to operate illegally and many do so at night and shut their usually sweatshop- like factories during the day. Very scary that only some forty water companies of some two hundred are registered! We drink water from those sachets but how we do know their purity?
Let us be honest, the battle to rein in those evasive water producers should not be that of Standard Bureau alone. They just don’t have the resources to run after these producers scattered all over the country. EWRC, the Ministry of Health and the Police must all collaborate to put out of business those rogue and dangerous water producers who could kill us with their uncertified products.
Down at the Port in Freetown, Standard Bureau workers are there as well to check products coming into the country. Every sea cargo container has to be examined and over the past couple of months two forty- feet and six twenty feet containers were found to be carrying expired food. The Bureau together with the Port Health department, ONS, the Police and the Environmental Protection Agency crushed and then dumped the beer, fruit juice, cream concentrates and condensed milk. Imagine if they have gone through the gates of the port unchecked. Rogue traders would have erased the expiry notification dates and replaced them with new ones, something that some crooked traders are said to be engaged in.
I also found out that the field inspectors get local food products like palm-oil and coconut oil from the shelves of supermarkets that they randomly tests and have removed those found to be carrying traces of water and other undesirables.
UNIDO has been very supportive of what they do by providing them with chemicals and other equipment required. I was at Kissy when news reached that an air-freighted consignment of chemicals had arrived at the Freetown International Airport at Lungi for the Bureau. Strangely the chemicals are so expensive that the Bureau cannot break even from the cost of tests per product that their clients pay. All monies from test fees are collected by an official from the National Revenue Authority (NRA) who is stationed at the Kissy facility.
The task of Standard Bureau is huge and such is the importance of what they do that they should be given the necessary support. I found there a team of real professionals who are led by a very listening Executive Director in the person of Professor Yormah.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online (31/03/21)
