The Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) will begin to monitor electrical fittings and equipment from January to ensure defective goods are not sold on the local market.
GNBS Public Relations Officer Lloyd David stated that the Bureau has developed 30 National Standards for these apparatuses, which would be used for monitoring.
GNBS Public Relations Officer Lloyd David
“We want to get on board with that; it is very critical that we do so. Many times, complaints are made regarding poor-quality electrical equipment and fittings coming into the country and made available to consumers,” he told the Department of Public Information (DPI) in a recent interview.
The GNBS advanced work on creating the standards as faulty equipment can cause injury and fires.
The Bureau has already done some groundwork to inform stakeholders about the Standards, their roles and responsibilities, and the actions it would take when monitoring started.
“When we find defective items, items that do not comply, we will either seize and remove them or place them on hold so that persons will not be able to sell those items […] We will be very firm with it, because we have given the stakeholders adequate grace time to take the necessary actions to ensure they have quality products when our monitoring fully commences,” David explained.
The GNBS is also working on building capacity to test concrete blocks.
“A lot of persons would like to determine the quality of blocks they have purchased or they have manufactured, so we see a need in that area,” he said.
Currently, the GNBS monitors 17 categories of commodities on the local market, but there are challenges.
“Overall testing of products is a challenge to the GNBS. In the meantime, we rely on the certificate provided by the manufacturer/importer, saying that the product is of quality. Of course, that certificate comes from a third-party testing body,” he explained.
The certificates provided by third parties are authenticated by the GNBS before the items are approved for sale locally.
“Testing requires equipment, laboratories and the right conditions, so we are looking to build our own state-of-the-art facilities sometime in the near future, where we can have the various laboratories available to conduct those testing,” David said.
In the meantime, the GNBS is in the process of identifying the critical areas where testing is needed to develop the required laboratories
