The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) – EU-funded West Africa Competitiveness Programme – Ghana supports nine selected quality experts from Ghana to be IRCA Certified ISO 22000 Lead Auditors.
The support is part of WACOMP’s effort to contribute to building local competence and a pool of national experts to backstop and handhold MSMEs in Ghana to meet quality requirements, gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace, and avoid export product recalls.
The experts were selected from the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), and other private institutions.
A brief graduation ceremony was held for the successful candidates on Thursday at the WACOMP Project office in Labone.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Charles Kwame Sackey, Chief Technical Advisor of WACOMP – Ghana, stated that the support is part of WACOMP’s mandate to train a pool of national experts and build their competencies on topics/practices such as quality management, product quality, manufacturing, and food safety in Ghana.
Mr. Sackey said: “WACOMP Ghana continuously builds up the competency of experts in system audits and management system implementation since it is strategic for Ghana, European Union, and UNIDO, as it ensures that the number of certified auditors increases in the country, which should, in turn, make businesses more competitive.”
“WACOMP Ghana will continue to build the capacity of local experts to strengthen their confidence, skills, and knowledge in the discharge of their duties in supporting MSMEs to develop a ‘culture of quality’ and to increase the number of certified auditors in the country to support 1D1F to be more competitive,” Mr. Sackey added.
Mr. Fakhruddin Azizi, the UNIDO Representative to Ghana and Liberia congratulated the graduates and encouraged them to apply their skills as part of capacity building and to support the country in its industrialization drive.
Mr. Azizi said: Use the skills acquired in your respective workplaces and support MSMEs especially to be quality competitive to support Ghana in her industrialization drive”
ISO 22000 is a Food safety management system that provides requirements for any organization in the food industry to help to improve overall performance in food safety.
Last year, UNIDO and the European Union through WACOMP supported 10 experts from Ghana to receive IRCA ISO 9001:2015 lead auditor certification.
