It has been observed that undue bureaucratic and delays in licencing and certification of businesses in the manufacturing and food industries is a challenge facing Small and Medium Enterprises (SME�s).
In view of this, the Sekondi-Takoradi Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry (STRCCI) is embarking on an advocacy action, seeking to remove bottlenecks on product certification. Mr. Vicent Annan, the Executive Secretary of the STRCCI, at a meeting noted that some members of the chamber produce goods such as sachet-water, soap, local yoghurt among others.
However, regulatory bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) , Food and Drugs Board (FDB) as well as Factory Inspectorate Department make certain processes cumbersome as they are not located at one place but rather placed far apart.
Therefore, he said, for a manufacturer to obtain certificates from all these bodies for one single product-line, the manufacturer would have to shuttle from one agency to the other as well as be paying different fees for different certification of the same products.
�During the third quarter of 2011, STRCCI with the assistance from Hanns Siedal Foundation conducted a research that assessed the impact of product certification processes on businesses,� Mr. Annan said.
He explained that the overall goal of the research is to have an easier and simplified products certification process that leads to an improved business environment through higher efficiency, reduced cost and time during the certification process.
In a survey conducted by Cesult Services (Business Development Consultancy) for 30 food and manufacturing industries in the Western and Central Regions, on �assessing the impact of product certification on business in Ghana�, noted that regulatory constraints pose serious challenges to the manufacturing and food industry development.
According to the findings, 91% of the respondents said yes they face constraints when dealing with GSA while 87% also answered yes to facing constraints in their dealings with FDB. 57% of the respondents had no immediate access to facilities of GSA whereas 67% had immediate access to facilities of FDB. Also, 63% claimed that they had available information in dealing with FDB compared to 45% who had no information of GSA.
Also, the manufacturing and food industries seem to be contemplating whether to register with FDB or GSA, since the two procedures are similar and it would be cost-intensive for them --especially the small-scale manufacturers. The findings pointed out that the two processes are clearly time-consuming, and the lack of widespread education prevents the manufacturing and food industries from registering with the FDB and GSA since most of them believe being registered with one body covers the other.
Again, it recommended that the regulatory bodies must find better ways of minimising the steps which during the legal procedures involved in doing business in the country as well as reduce the constraints that manufacturing and food industries are face.
The findings recommended that there should be the establishment of a merger between Ghana Standards Authority and the Food and Drugs Board.
The potential efficiency benefits from the merger of Ghana Standard Authority and Food and Drugs Board include both operating and managerial efficiencies -- which would lead to the removal of bureaucracies and reduce the complexities and amount of time spent on registering and licencing products with these government Agencies.
It recommended that there should be creation of a �one stop shop� for the licencing products, thereby reducing the complexity and rather frustrating product certification processes and the amount of time spent dealing with these agencies. This, the study noted, would remove the incidence of businesses visiting various agencies and paying different amounts of money for the certification of a single product.
The recommendation added that there should be clear definition of the roles played by the FDB and the GSA so as to remove any ambiguity. The definition of food under the context of regulation should be clear and concise. This will facilitate the entire licencing procedure, thus further reducing the time spent on the registration processes.
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