TRAINING AIMED AT AUDIT QUALITY AND ASSURANCE SYSTEMS
Audit training participants complete their course work. Photo credit: Andrew Sale.
Staff from business and government departments have participated in a training course on how to maintain and audit quality assurance systems that is required by overseas markets.
The Pacific Horticultural and Agricultural Market Access Program, PHAMA for short, provided the training as part of its work to improve export capacity in both private and public sectors.
Business sectors that participated include managers and senior officers from agricultural processors and fish exporters, the Commodities Export Marketing Authority and government departments within the Ministries of Health and Agriculture.
A press statement said the training provided instruction on standards and internal auditing for food safety systems that would improve the sector’s ability to meet British Retail Consortium standards which are expected by overseas markets.
Meanwhile, a senior manager at a private company who attended the PHAMA training said the training provided knowledge and skills on how to do internal audits on their organization’s operations that would meet these required standards.
Shirleyter Abe, who is the Manager for Solfish Copra Mill, also described the training as a ‘bonus’.
PHAMA is a 15-million Australian dollar program funded by the Australian Government.
It provides support to Pacific Island Countries to gain access for new products into new markets, maintain and improve existing trade.