|
Contact:
Julita Peter
Wednesday, October 10, 2007 – The Saint Lucia Bureau of Standards -
S.L.B.S. is throughout this week participating in the annual observance of World
Standards Day which was observed on Sunday October 14th. Director of the Bureau
Dr. Darius Gabriel, has reiterated the importance of standards compliance by
both consumers and manufacturers. Standards he said are important in ensuring
that goods and services, as well as processes and practices, meet the
requirement for which they were meant, and that they are safe for the consumer
and the environment. Dr.Gabriel added that both the consumer and the goods and
services provider stands to benefit when stipulated standards are adhered to.
“Businesses are improved because they are now meeting the requirements of their
consumers and so they are able to carve out a market share for themselves, and
sustain that market, because they are now producing goods and services that
people really want. So businesses are improved, the manufacturing sector is
improved and therefore the economy is improved and that really is the objective
of standards,” Dr. Gabriel said.
The Saint. Lucia Bureau of Standards has set itself the strategic objective of
ensuring that its standardization program is aligned with economic and social
needs of the country.
That according to The Bureau's Director is one of the ways to ensure impact. “In
other words we are not going to develop standards simply because someone feels
that it should be done; there must be some justification from the standpoint
from the economic development social development while we are going into the
development of a standard,” He added.
A big challenge confronting the Bureau is the lack of input for the standards
development process. Dr. Gabriel suggested this may be due to stakeholders and
the general public not understanding their roles in safeguarding consequently
the Bureau will be undertaking a vigorous public education program aimed at
generating greater interest in the work that it does currently.
Meantime while World Standards Day will be celebrated on Sunday October 14th,
the Saint Lucia Bureau of Standards, has dedicated the entire month of October
to highlighting standards and their impact on the daily lives of Saint Lucians.
Several activities have been planned including the S.L.B.S. National Annual
Debating Competition which took place on October 10th. Two teams from Mabouya
Valley and Anse La- Raye argued the topic, “The quality of daily life is not
seriously affected by the absence of standards in a society.”
According to the Head of Information Services at the Bureau, Ayodele Hipolyte,
“the idea is that people get a clear idea of why standards matter so much to
daily life, without them how life would be almost impossible.” “Other activities
include visits to secondary schools in the main.
We want to target the youth to get them to think about how standards relate to
their own lives as students. We will also be critically launching four animated
public service advertisements each one tackling how standards relate to daily
life.” The theme for World Standards Day 2007 is, “Standards and the
Citizen-contributing to society.”
| 
