Consumer protection and trade facilitation

Didul Kodagoda Chairman, Sri Lanka Accreditation Board

“Conformity assessment” assured through third party accreditation is one of the most powerful tools of ensuring “consumer protection”,though the importance of the link between the two is unknown to the public.

“Accredited Conformity Assessment” is the globally used term to describe accreditation and certification processes.

It is a process which guarantees that products, processes, systems or people meet specified requirements. These requirements may be specified in a standard or in a regulation or in a contract.

Accreditation at large provides assurance to the consumers that assessing the conformity of the products they buy to the requirements specified in the standards or stipulated by the relevant regulatory authorities in the country, is carried out by technically competent personnel in an impartial manner with the guarantee of integrity of their actions. Accreditation is implemented on a voluntary basis all over the world.

However, many governments have now realized the importance of accreditation and its impact on consumer protection and trade facilitation resulting in the incorporation of accreditation into existing regulations, thereby making it mandatory in an indirect manner.

The Sri Lanka Accreditation Board for Conformity Assessment (SLAB), with the blessings of the Technology and Research Ministry has initiated discussions with controlling authorities of two regulatory bodies whose regulations have a critical impact on the health and safety of the general public and the environment. They are the Ministry of Health and Motor Traffic Department.

Accreditation of Medical Testing Laboratories

Diagnosis of deceases and subsequent treatment of patients depend on the information provided by Medical Testing Laboratories in their test reports.

Hence the accuracy and reliability of the test results are extremely important. Just as a manufacturing organization has to take necessary action to control the quality of their products a testing laboratory too need to implement certain quality assurance programmes in order to ensure the accuracy and reliability of test results.

“Quality” is never an accident. To achieve quality you need to plan, implement the plans, monitor the outcome and take action if there is any deviation from the plans.

This is applicable for laboratories too. Through accreditation, laboratories will be able to develop their quality management systems to achieve accurate and reliable test results.

More than 400 Private Medical Laboratories have been registered at the Health Ministry todate. The Private Medical Institution (Registration)act under which this registration scheme operates, is being revised and SLAB has made its proposals for incorporating accreditation into this revision.

Also medical professional bodies have submitted proposals to the Health Ministry for accrediting Laboratories operating in the Government Hospitals.

The laboratories operating under Colombo, Ragama, Ratnapura, Kandy and Galle Government hospitals along with the Medical Research Institute and the Blood Bank have been identified by the Ministry to work towards accreditation.

SLAB has already conducted awareness programmes for the employees of the five Government hospital laboratories.

This accreditation programme for medical laboratories both in the Government and the Private sectors would certainly improve the health care system in the country.

Accreditation of Vehicle Emission Testing (VET) Centres

Under the Motor Traffic Amendment Act, no revenue licence is issued to motor vehicles by the licencing authority unless an emission certificate is produced. Regulations made under the Environment Act require the owner of the motor vehicle to obtain this certificate from an accredited garage authorized by Commissioner of Motor Traffic. SLAB has established a Technical Advisory Committee to develop specific criteria for vehicle emission inspection and the draft document is being discussed now.

It is expected to be finalized soon. We are confident that this scheme could be initiated during the first half of 2012. It would ultimately provide control measures to prevent or mitigate environmental pollution due to vehicle emissions.

Trade Facilitation

When goods and services are exchanged across economies it becomes necessary to prove their quality to the intended customers. This is achieved through ?conformity assessment?. When the relevant conformity assessment process is accredited it will facilitate the exchange as no further assessment would be necessary when the goods arrive in the country that imported the items. The Sri Lankan exporter will eliminate enormous costs if he had to submit a report from a foreign accredited laboratory.

The Sri Lanka Accreditation Board is one of the apex bodies in the National Quality Infrastructure which is the institutional framework necessary to regularize and harmonize all the relevant activities required to implement conformity assessment with confidence.

The other institutions are:

* National Standards body for preparing and adapting national standards and adapting international standard wherever necessary

* National Metrology Institute for establishing and maintaining measurement standards traceable to international standards

* Controlling authorities of regulations through accredited conformity assessment process to ensure consumer health and safety.

The above three types of institutions have been in operation in Sri Lanka for a considerable period of time. With the establishment of the Sri Lanka Accreditation Board by an act of Parliament (Act no. 32 of 2005) the national quality infrastructure has been strengthened and through accreditation an important step will be taken in facilitating acceptance and recognition of Sri Lankan goods and services both domestically and internationally.

Furthermore accredited test data would benefit the research and development activity as it ensures the accuracy and the reliability of the data used for R & D.