Coconut Development Authority, first Govt. institute to recognise need for accreditation

By a Special Correspondent

On 10 July, the Coconut Development Authority advertised that it would consider only the certifications obtained from certification bodies that are accredited directly by SLAB orby any other accreditation board acceptable to the International Accreditation Forum or to International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC). 

This disturbed and excited the certification, inspection, testing and calibration bodies selling their certifications to maximise the share of profit rather than considering the country’s interests in implementing a genuine quality infrastructure assuring the quality of our products and other social, environmental, health and other related issues which need to be satisfied to face the demand of global market. In the recent past many consignments exported by our country to the EU and other importing countries have been returned due to inferior quality.

However this is the only Government authority that has announced this need after the Cabinet decision taken in January to consider the necessity of accreditation for certifications, inspections, calibration and laboratory testing, etc. The third party independent and impartial management system certifications, inspection, calibration and testing certificates are frequently requested and required by buyers to ensure credibility and impartiality. This is essential to strengthen our industries to face challenges and competition in the global marketplace. It can demonstrate compliance to standards, a set of specifications, a code of practices or regulatory requirements while ensuring the development of the business.

Selecting non-accredited organisations or organisations not directly accredited and those whose activities are not monitored by an accreditation board to carry out your certification, inspection, calibration and testing can result in chaos unless you obtain the certificate from an accredited certification, inspection, testing, and calibration organisation. Selecting a certification body that has been accredited by an accreditation body that is signatory to the IAF Multi Recognition Agreement (MLA) is the only way to prove that your company complies with international standards.

When a certification body is given accreditation by certifying their competence to issue independent third party certifications, inspection and test reports, there are many factors to be considered such as qualifications, training and competence of certification personnel including auditors and certification decision makers. Technical competence of personnel with relevant experience and sector qualifications with the ability to verify the conformity to the intended management system standard to be complied by the company ensures professional, independence and impartial audits.

Although the primary objective of any company to obtain third party certification for its management systems, inspection and testing services are for marketing purposes and for customer requirements, in certain cases certifications are obtained to comply with a regulatory requirements. In such situations, certifications will not meet intended requirements and it is the responsibility of both the company and the regulatory body to find out that their certification body is actually accredited by an accreditation body, whether it is national or international. Accreditation is an essential requirement to prove the legal due diligence in the event of any legal action on the company or its products and services.

However, in most developing countries including Sri Lanka the reality is that most of the certifications and test reports including medical test reports issued by certification bodies and laboratories, including certain multinational organisations do not have accreditation to their activities in those developing countries. Instead they either conduct all certification activities  including document review, auditing and other negotiations with client locally, but the certificate is imported from a sister company operates in another country where they have accreditation to an internationally-accepted accreditation body or by issuing tests reports using testing and calibration laboratories outside the country. This procedure is contrary to the regulations of IAF and also highly unethical as the certification body which issues the accredited certification has not included its branch office in the scope of accreditation in the developing country. 

The Sri Lanka Cabinet has approved a proposal to consider only the certifications issued by accredited certification, inspection, calibration and testing bodies if the certification is required by a regulatory body to accept operations of a company, which will be enforced in near future. This will prevent certification, inspection and testing bodies that operate remotely and their activities are not monitored by a third party to issue certifications for such requirements. 

Therefore as citizens of this country we need to commend the action taken by CDA and expect the same from all other Government organisations whether regulatory bodies or service organisations such as the Consumer Affairs Authority, Export Development Board, Sri Lanka Tourist Development Authority, National Environmental Authority, National Enterprise Development Authority and all Government Ministries that deal with health, food, safety of employees, etc.