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Government’s policy to give accreditation importance has been proven right
Censu Galea Minister for Competitiveness and Communications
Presenting the accreditation certificate to the Malta National Laboratory is an achievement following months of hard work by the laboratory and a thorough assessment by the National Accreditation Board (NAB). The assessment established that the Malta National Laboratory meets the requirements of the international standard for testing laboratories, MSA ISO17025 for the tests listed in the scope of accreditation.
Even prior to accession to the EU, government understood the importance of accreditation and the need to establish a National Accreditation Body as part of the National Quality Infrastructure. Government’s policy to give importance to accreditation has been proven right as can be confirmed from the current discussions being held by the Commission’s DG Enterprise and Industry as part of the revision of the New Approach and the common horizontal act. The Commission states that there is a necessity to create an appropriate Community legislative framework for accreditation both at the national and Community levels and it recognises that accreditation can play an important role as the last level of control in the conformity assessment system.
Legislation which has recently been revised to ensure that it meets the requirements of the European accreditation infrastructure, ensures that there can only be one nationally recognized Accreditation Body: that is the National Accreditation Board. We have also ensured that all interested parties, both from the public and private sectors, participate in the national accreditation infrastructure. This has been achieved through the setting up of the Accreditation Committee.
It is the government’s policy to continue to support the NAB-Malta. EU Transition facility funding has also been made available to continue to strengthen the NAB-Malta, to help it to further develop the competence of its staff and to continue to strengthen its relationships with its European colleagues from other accreditation bodies. The NAB-Malta has also applied for the EA MLA (European Co-operation for Accreditation - Multilateral Agreement) and if successful this will be a milestone that will be beneficial not only to the direct clients of the NAB-Malta, but also to a number of sectors of the economy as it will give accreditation in Malta a new dimension.
As Minister responsible for Competitiveness I cannot stress enough the importance of accreditation not only at the mandatory level but also at the voluntary level. In today’s highly competitive markets, accreditation is fast becoming an important factor. Accreditation is widely chosen by an organisation because of the competitive advantages it provides, resulting in a better access to its intended market. After all accreditation is all about demonstrating the competence of an organisation through an independent third-party assessment and is an attestation of compliance with internationally established standards and requirements.
Whilst accreditation bodies should ensure that they offer a service which adds value to their clients, operators in the conformity assessment fields should not look at accreditation as an unnecessary burden but as a means of continually improving their set-up.
A number of Ministries and public authorities have already started to source conformity assessment services from accredited bodies and this is bound to increase even further in the future.
We hope that other Maltese laboratories will emulate the success of the Malta National Laboratory. An increase in the number of accredited laboratories will help to boost Malta’s competitiveness and will also be a key to the attraction of new investments. It will also reduce costs to government and industry since it will reduce the need to conduct testing at foreign laboratories.
I would like to conclude by complementing the Malta National Laboratory for this achievement and to encourage them to maintain this momentum, so that they can continue to meet the requirements of the standard, as will be verified during the regular surveillance visits which the NAB-Malta will carry out. I would also like to encourage the laboratory to strive to increase the number of tests it has accredited.
Speech delivered at the Accreditation of the Malta National Laboratory, San Gwann on 9 February 2007 |
