Ghana ratifies Catagena Protocol on Biosafety

Kumasi, Oct. 10, GNA- Ghana has become the 49th country to ratify the Catagena protocol on Biosafety, a key international law to guide the environmentally sound and safe management of modern biotechnology and the 50th Party to the protocol.

Mr Alex Owusu-Biney, National project Co-ordinator of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and Global Environmental Facility (GEF) on Development of National Biosafety Foundation for Ghana, said the protocol became legally binding as an international law on September 11, this year.

The Catagena Protocol on Biosafety is a treaty that sets out a comprehensive regulatory system for ensuring the safe transfer, handling and use of genetically modified organisms across national borders. Speaking at a public forum organised by the National Bio-safety Committee in Kumasi on Thursday, Mr Owusu-Biney said guidelines developed by the committee were being reviewed as part of the national bio-safety framework development process.

He said the concern of the government to develop a bio-safety regime led to the establishment of a Technical Focal Point at the Biotechnology and Nuclear Agricultural Research Institute of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission.

Mr Owusu-Biney said currently, survey information was being captured into a national database on bio-safety in Ghana and that inventories of the surveyed information were being developed and would be published in the last quarter of the project, which ends in April 2004.

Professor E.V. Doku, a member of the National Bio-safety Committee and a lecturer at the Crop Science Department, University of Ghana, Legon, asked Ghanaians to regard biotechnology as a promising technology for the improvement of increase in food production and the provision of better health facilities.