Asankrangwa (W/R), Nov. 16, GNA- The Ghana Standards Board has organized a one-day workshop on the relevance of weights and measures NRCD Decree 326 of 1975 in economic transactions, for cocoa purchasing and marketing clerks and depot managers, at Asankrangwa in the Western Region. The participants were educated on regulations that controlled and monitored importation and the use of weights and weighing scales in economic activities.

They were also sensitized on weights and measures laws, pattern approval, measurement standards and procedures and calibration, verification and inspection.

Rev. M.A. Pappoe, Director of Metrology of the Board said the government had set up a special task force to inspect and ensure that weighing instruments maintained accuracies within the validity period, enabling users to keep weighing and measuring means under congenial conditions for operation.

He said the task force had visited 53 cocoa buying centers and depots in Ashanti and Western regions and apprehended 25 purchasing clerks whose weighing scales were found to be tampered with. Rev. Pappoe said most of the purchasing clerks and depot managers had been prosecuted and fined between three million and five million cedis.

He assured purchasing clerks and depot managers that all weighing scales inspected by the Board would be given certificates to be valid for a year.

Mr. Richard Kwasi Addae, Asankrangwa District Senior Cocoa Quality Control Officer, appealed to cocoa farmers to desist from adding stones and pebbles to cocoa beans in order to gain more weight.