Participants at the training programme
The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) in collaboration with the Ghana Enterprises Agency has begun a three-day training programme for selected manufacturers of Cosmetics and Household Chemicals.
The training programme is aimed at building the industry capacity to ensure that manufacturers have the requisite knowledge to be able to continuously manufacture products that meet both local and international standards.
Addressing the participants during the opening of the training in Accra, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) FDA, Delese Mimi Darko, said the regulatory authority has over the years instituted several activities to enable it achieve its mandate and objectives which includes the inspection and licensing of manufacturing facilities.
“Inspection activities at the various manufacturing facilities of cosmetics and household chemical manufacturing industries over the years have revealed a number of GMP deficiencies for both premises and quality management system which has necessitated the need for this training programme,” she said.
Mrs Darko stated that the FDA in partnership with the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ghana Export Promotion Authority and other stakeholders between November and December 2020, toured the country to create awareness on the establishment of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
She said during the tour, stakeholders encouraged local businesses to take advantage of the opportunity to expand their production capacities to enable them manufacture enough products for export within Africa under the AfCFTA agreement.
“It is important to note that with this golden opportunity for local industries, one’s business can only strive in export and even on the local market if they manufacture products that are of the right quality to meet both local and international standards,” she said.
She said Government and for that matter the FDA and GEA, strongly believed that such training programmes were very necessary to empower local companies to come out with products whose quality attributes could be compared with existing best ones on the market.
Senior Regulatory Officer at the Drug Industrial Support Department of the FDA, Yaw Baffour Gyimah, in a presentation on good manufacturing practice requirements for cosmetic industries, said every production establishment must have registered licenses for both their premises and products from the FDA.
He gave other operational requirements as regular verification inspection by the FDA to ensure that their products met consistently applicable public health safety regulations requirement.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri