Director-General of the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) Professor Alex Dodoo has said that educating consumers on which electrical cables are the best is the most appropriate way of curbing the importation of substandard wires.

Speaking on Joy FM's Super Morning Show Wednesday, Professor Dodoo explained that this strategy will equip the consumers with requisite knowledge to decipher fake cables from the original ones.

"Because at the end of the day, consumers need to know whether what they’re buying is good or not. They must be able to ascertain the quality. That for me is the biggest way of enforcement. You cannot catch thieves forever. But if consumers know that this is original, they would vote with their money."

He noted that the GSA has been collaborating with the Ghana Police Service (GPS) to rid the market of these substandard cables but that has not been without challenges.

"Quite often, you don’t want to alarm the public. But then this calendar year, I’ve stopped counting the number of containers of cables we’ve had to send back. That is always a challenge because when you have to send them back, it also brings its own issue. Because you’re following whether it's actually been re-exported."

Discussions on the Show focused on the illegal electrical wires menace which has resulted numerous fire outbreaks and the role of regulatory institutions like the Ghana Standards Authority and the Energy Commission in the importation of electrical wires into the country.

The GSA's Director General said, "anything imported legitimately, through the ports, either Tema or the land borders have to be checked by the Ghana Standards Authority, except if they are goods regulated by the FDA."

Aside from the ports and land borders, he said these checks are done at the Opera Square by the Ghana Electrical Dealers Association, who use a wheatstone bridge to test the critical parameters of these imported wires.

 Currently, he said that more than 10 containers have been confiscated by the GSA.

"We do not have the power to destroy. We advise customs to re-export them to the country of origin."