NCRA Marks One Year of Safeguarding Health, Safety and Fairness in Trade

The National Compliance and Regulatory Authority (NCRA) is marking one year since its legal establishment as the regulatory arm of the Bureau of Standards Jamaica (BSJ).

An entity under the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce, the NCRA is charged with safeguarding consumer health and safety and promoting fairness in trade by verifying the quality of products sold within the country.

It began operations in January 2015 to transition the regulatory responsibilities from the BSJ to an independent body.

This is in compliance with the World Trade Organization (WTO) Technical Barriers to Trade arrangement, which provides that the regulatory activities, monitoring, inspecting and enforcement responsibilities must be separated from the standard-setting body.

Under component 5a of the Strategic Public Sector Transformation Programme, the Regulatory Division of the BSJ was separated by Cabinet Decision number 27/15 to form a new entity called the NCRA.

Speaking with JIS News, Inspector with Oversight of the Import and Domestic Commodities Inspectorate, Lenworth Clarke, explains that while the entity carried out its work “there was not a statute that established the NCRA”.

“Even though it was a registered entity it was not yet technically a legal entity having a statute of its own until January 15, 2024 [when the NCRA Act came into operation],” he notes further.

“In the consequential amendment, it removes the regulatory power from the BSJ… and gives the power to regulate to the NCRA,” he notes further.

The NCRA is responsible for inspecting and monitoring goods at ports of entry and in the domestic market to ensure compliance with laws and mandatory standards, and registering pre-packaged food establishments, importers, and manufacturers of goods.

The entity is also charged with verifying weighing and measuring devices used in trade and conducting petrol sampling.

All other standardisation activities remain under the remit of the BSJ.

Mr. Clarke tells JIS News that with this change, the BSJ is more customer-focused in its functions.

“So, you will find that they will promote more business. That is one of the fundamental reasons for the change because we could not be the one assisting the client and then come back and regulate the client. The Bureau is now the facilitator and the NCRA is now the regulator,” he explains.

“They now have at the Bureau a client services role, so if persons need to start a business and you do not know how to do this, you can go to client services to help and assist you,” he adds.

There are three inspectorates at the NCRA that carry out activities to safeguard health, safety and fairness in trade for consumers.

These are the Food Safety Inspectorate, Legal Metrology and Petroleum Inspectorate and the Import and Domestic Commodities Inspectorate.

The Food Safety Inspectorate registers food-processing establishments, conducts inspections and sampling to monitor for compliance with regulations and carries out enforcement action as required.

The Legal Metrology and Petroleum Inspectorate verifies weighing and measuring devices for accuracy of measurements.

This includes pumps at the gas stations to ensure that the volume of gas delivered is accurate as recorded at the pump.

This inspectorate also samples petroleum product imports for quality, issues releases to the market after satisfactory results are achieved and carries out enforcement action as required.

The team of inspectors at the Import and Domestic Commodities Inspectorate examines consignments at ports of entry and importers’ premises, detains products for testing and non-conformance, and withdraws non-conforming products from sale in retail and wholesale outlets.

The Import and Domestic Commodities Inspectorate also monitors block makers and ready-mix concrete, aggregates and cement for compliance to standards, issues certificates to compliant block makers, and carries out enforcement action as required.

For the year 2024, the NCRA prevented $250 million worth of goods from being placed on the shelves in the marketplace, which were found to be in breach of established standards.
The entity conducted more than 6,000 inspections of products in Jamaica for the period, including those coming from abroad.

In addition, more than 222 enforcement actions were taken, including the withdrawal of 193,000 products for sale in retail outlets.

During this period, the NCRA also received ISO/IEC 17020: 2012 standard accreditation.