The Gambia Standards Bureau (GSB) on Friday ended a week-long training designed for the staff of National Metrology Laboratory (NML) in Abuko, West Coast Region. The week-long synergyheld at the NML Office at Abuko, was meant, among other things, to update the knowledge of the selected participants on the use and function of the newly installed metrology equipment at the National Metrology Laboratory of The Gambia Standards Bureau, located at Abuko.

In order to meet its mandate of keeping and maintaining national primary standards of measurements for calibration, Papa Secka Director General of the GSB, in an interview with this reporter, said the Bureau runs the NML, adding that the laboratory is set up to address three measurement parameters in mass, volume and temperature.

"The equipment for these parameters was provided by the West Africa Quality Programme. It was an EU-sponsored project implemented by UNIDO under the auspices of the Ministry of Trade, Industry, Regional Integration and Employment (MOTIE)," he noted.

DG Secka disclosed that among the ECOWAS nations, The Gambia is one of the six countries which have been provided with the metrology equipment. He explained that the equipment consists of high precision volumetric and mass balances and associated primary standards, which are of the highest accuracy, high sensitivity temperature measurement devices, humidity and temperature monitoring machines, among others.

On the services of the laboratory, he said, industries and other private sector entities; laboratories of all kinds, and research institutions can obtain calibration of their measurement equipment in the three earlier mentioned parameters directly for the first time in The Gambia.

The GSB boss further disclosed that the range of equipment for which calibration is required includes thermometers used in clinical or industrial facilities, weights and measurement devices and volumetric containers and dispensing units. He revealed that the UNIDO Regional Expert on metrology in Ecowas being dispatched to the country to conduct the installation and training on the use of the equipment for calibration and verification of measures and measuring equipment, did a very good job. He said the regional expert has covered both theory and practical aspects of the training.

Secka explained further that some of the equipment provided are for the use of the weights and measures bureau as the unit under MoTIE responsible for verification of weights and measures. "Therefore, the NML under the GSB will perform calibration services within the other two areas of metrology, scientific and industrial metrologies," he assured.