GPHA holds ISO management review meeting

Management of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority has held an International Standardisation Organisation review meeting in accordance with their commitment to remain conformed to international safety standards set by ISO.

The ISO ensures that all corporate entities that deal with issues sensitive to safety comply with their protocols to attain quality standards and an eco-friendly environment.

Ghana’s Ports, being a highly safety-sensitive entity in the maritime industry is obliged to maintain a high standard of safety regulations and protocols.

“As GPHA has decided to be ISO certified, we have to make a lot of sacrifices and the audit findings for the various departments brought up some issues that need to be discussed and resolved. With all of us being committed to the process, we will be able to go through and at the end of the day, GPHA will be better off,” the GM Administration of GPHA, Sandra Opoku stated.

It would be recalled that early this year, the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) was awarded ISO 14001:2015 (Environmental Management System), ISO 9001:2015 (Quality Management System) and OHSAS 18001:2007 (Occupational Health and Safety System), forming the Integrated Management System with the assurance to transform its services for an increased performance.

GPHA successfully sailed through the certification audit by its certification body, SGS-Ghana, and thus joined a growing list of organisations in the country working in conformity to the revised versions of the Environmental Management System and Quality Management.

The management review meeting was therefore purposed to review GPHA’s safety objectives and findings from an internal audit team which posed challenges to their objectives.

“This is to continually improve the standards that GPHA is certified to. We believe that, going forward, our staff, all the employees GPHA and our contractors, stakeholders will own this system and make sure they work naturally without any hindrance”, the Corporate Monitoring Manager of GPHA, Garvin Amarvie who doubles as ISO Coordinator explained.

He said GPHA will continue to improve its standards of operations in order to keep its International Standards Organization certification.