Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Puran Bridgemohan
Chairman, TTBS
Chairmans Message
This year is of special signicance to this
nation as Trinidad & Tobago celebrates its 50th
Anniversary of Independence, while the
Trinidad & Tobago Bureau of Standards (TTBS)
commemorates its 38th Anniversary.
Trinidad & Tobago emerged as an independent nation on
August 31st, 1962, after overcoming the challenges of
slavery, indentureship and colonialism. Since then
Trinidad and Tobago has made steady and remarkable
social and economic progress. This is evident by the
improved standard of living most citizens enjoy. We at
the TTBS take pleasure in joining with the rest of the
nation in congratulating Trinidad & Tobago on its 50th
Anniversary. We also take the opportunity to wish our
beloved country continued growth, peace and prosperity.
Happy 50th Anniversary T&T.
TTBS was established as the government agency to
promote the development and application of standards
as well as conformity assessment processes. Over the
years TTBS has been serving the nation through its
services by safeguarding public health and safety,
ensuring acceptable quality in goods imported into the
country, enhancing the competitiveness of the industrial
sector and protecting the environment. TTBS reports to
the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Investment.
On July 8th, the Trinidad & Tobago Bureau of Standards
celebrated its 38th Anniversary with a number of
activities that took place during the month of July. These
included distribution of tokens of appreciation and
awards to staff. Today, we also take pleasure in paying
tribute to all the past and current Boards, Executive
Directors and former staff for their invaluable
Historical
Overview
Standards Information
for National Development
Through the Standards Information
Centre, TTBS provides information on
standards, technical regulations and in
specialized areas of standardization
namely Metrology, Standards, Testing,
Inspection and Quality Systems. The
Centre possesses the largest collection
of standards in Trinidad and Tobago. It
also houses a complete collection of
National Standards, ISO Standards, other
Regional and International collections in
both print and electronic formats. To
encourage greater use of standards and
related services, the Standards Information
Centre provides a range of services benecial
to public and private sector organizations as
well as individuals. These services are Sale of Standards,
Membership Programme, Standards Updating,
Reference Facility, World Trade Organization/Technical
Barrier to Trade (WTO/TBT) Enquiry Point and Export
Alert. The Sale of Standards involves sourcing and
Public Educational
Outreach Programme
In-keeping with its mandate, TTBS conducted a public
education programme targeting students at Primary
School, Secondary School, Technical/Vocational and
Tertiary levels throughout Trinidad & Tobago.
The programme was aimed at raising their awareness
and understanding of the students about the importance
of standards in every- day life as well as TTBS services.
Ofcers of TTBS visited these educational institutions
and delivered presentations focussing specically on
TTBS mandate, benets of standards and inspection
services. TTBS also accommodated visiting students
from these educational institutions upon request and
used the opportunity to educate them about standards
and TTBS.
Laboratory Accreditation
Seminar on safe food and
clean drinking water
On Tuesday 12th June, 2012 the Trinidad and Tobago
Laboratory Accreditation Service (TTLABS) celebrated
World Accreditation Day with a seminar, workshop and
cocktail reception. This years theme for World
Accreditation Day, which is recognised on June 9th, was
Accreditation Supporting Safe Food and Clean
Drinking Water. The main objectives of this workshop
were:
To present an overview of the current situation
pertaining to the challenges associated with the
provision of safe food and clean drinking water in
Trinidad and Tobago
Create opportunities for stakeholders to network
with each other for the purpose of improvement of
the quality of food and water produced/imported in
Trinidad and Tobago
Orient participants to the establishment of policies
regarding the use of accredited conformity
assessment activities to ensure the provision of safe
food and clean drinking water
Participants from stakeholder organizations such as
Ministry of Food Production, Land and Marine Affairs,
Water and Sewerage Authority, National Agricultural,
Marketing & Development Corporation, Food & Beverage
Industry Development Company, Ministry of Tourism,
Public Health Inspectorate, Chemistry, Food and Drugs
Division, Angostura Limited and Arawak & Company
Limited were in attendance.
Dr. Puran Bridgemohan, Chairman of the Trinidad and
Tobago Bureau of Standards (TTBS) Board of Directors
and Mr. Deryck Omar, Executive Director of TTBS, joined
Ms Karlene Lewis, Manager of TTLABS in welcoming the
participants. Dr Bridgemohans feature address
presented startling facts from studies published by the
WHO, the US Centers for Disease Control and CAREC on
the prevalence of food borne illnesses experienced by
populations in Africa, the US and Trinidad and Tobago.
He mentioned the importance of the application of
HACCP principles and testing of food products to ensure
safe food is presented. He urged the need to have
testing facilities accredited to ensure the condence in
the safety of food and clean drinking water.
Dr Bridgemohan expressed his support of furthering
these discussions as TTBS works with its stakeholders to
foster a national food safety mechanism.