Abstract:
This is an institutional and a comparative case study involving the Ghana Standards
Authority (GSA) and the Pharmacy Council (PC) on consumer protection as a public
safety measure in Ghana.
Purposive sampling method was used in data gathering from 2 management
representatives of GSA and PC, thirty (30) of the general workers of PC, fifty (50) of the
general workers GSA and one hundred and twenty (120) consumers selected from the
Accra City Campus of the University of Ghana, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission and
its environs, and the Accra Shopping Mall. The respondents were made to complete
questionnaires which were based on the objectives of the study. SPSS was used in
generating the quantitative data from the relevant questionnaires. The quantitative data
were then analyzed using descriptive statistics.
The study has found out that GSA somehow had the capacity to ensure consumer and
public safety; but considering the size of Ghana’s population and the volume of goods
and services traded in much more ought to be done to guarantee the safety of the public.
It was also found out that the PC lacked the capacity to perform thereby putting the safety
of the public in jeopardy. With regard to the ability of the public to complement the
efforts of the 2 institutions, the study shows that the public was not quite capable to
complement those efforts. In sum therefore, the enforcement of existing consumer
protection legislations for public safety purposes in Ghana calls for the immediate
attention of all stakeholders concerned. Some policy recommendations have been made
to curtail the situation. One of these is that existing policies on the works of CEPS, GIS
and GAPOHA could be amended to make them more relevant for consumer protection.
