Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2016-01-20

Making Accreditation mandatory in taking Technical Decisions

- In order to ensure that the laboratories including medical laboratories, certification bodies and inspection bodies provide services with due standards to the clients, the Sri Lanka Accreditation Board (SLAB) grants accreditation to the said bodies in compliance with the international and national standards. Although this Board completes 10 years of existence, the number of accreditation granted by the said Board up to now is only about 100. The main reason for that low performance is the accreditation conducted by the SLAB is implemented only at the discretion of the client. Inadequacy of the assistance rendered by the regulatory bodies for the implementation of accreditation has also been a reason for this situation. Accordingly, the proposal made by Hon. Susil Premajayantha, the Minister of Science, Technology and Research, to provide necessary provisions to make the conformity assessment procedures and accreditation mandatory for the areas such as quality, environment, food safety, occupational health and safety, energy, was approved by the Cabinet.