By: Solomon Rogers PRO SLSB
In his keynote statement , the Executive Director of Sierra Leone Standards Bureau Professor Thomas B .R Yormah maintained that one of the challenges Sierra Leone and other third world countries are confronted with is the lack of awareness on the critical nexus between a sound National Quality Infrastructure and Social Economic Development.
Stressing that Sierra Leone National Quality Infrastructure is very weak and fragile but his institution has a mandate to strengthen it.
He went on to defined National Quality Infrastructure as the institutional framework that establishes and implement a number of interlinked activities among standardization, Metrology, accreditation, conformity assessment which encapsulates testing, inspection and certification.
The learned professor observed that Sierra Leone is the only country that uses mix of metric, imperial and nondescript units of measurement.
With the African Continental Trade Agreement he said, borders are now opened up to goods and services from other African countries stating that we must tidy up our measurement regime to ensure compliance with international dictates