SON to return to Nigeria’s borders soon – Official

The Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) says it is working on plans to return to the nation’s land borders to check influx of fake and substandard products into the country.

Malam Farouk Salim, Director General, SON, said this at the one-day Stakeholders’ Forum with the theme “Building Confidence Value in Local Products via Standardisation” on Friday in Awka.

Salim called for stakeholders’ cooperation toward achieving standardisation of services and products in the country.

He stressed the need for other agencies involved in the task of ensuring standards to partner with the agency to achieve better results.

Salim said that standardisation was a global issue and Nigeria cannot afford to lag behind in the comity of nation if it desired economic development.

“Efforts should therefore be geared towards cooperation by all manufacturers, consumers, service providers and government agencies at all levels with SON in this global subject,” he said.

Salim, represented by Mr Papaye Don-Pedro, the Director, Anambra Regional Operations, SON, said the federal government’s policy that uncertified products should not be sold in the country must be supported.

The DG called on educational institutions, hotels to subscribe to relevant international standards to enable them to be reckoned with.

Salim harped on the imperative for industrialists to adhere to Mandatory Conformity Assessment Programme (MANCAP) which required periodic factory visit/inspection of local industries by SON.

“The scheme combines all the processes involved in conformity assessment; inspection, standardisation, and testing, product sampling, and quality control audits using the relevant Nigeria Industrial Standard as reference in SON laboratories,” he said.

Chief Bede Obayi, Director, National Metrology Institute, SON, called on industrialists to ensure that their measurement tools were accurate to avoid production of substandard products.

He said non-compliance to measurements also result to building collapse, saying that SON target was for Nigerian manufacturers to produce for the global markets.

Obayi advised importers and exporters to avoid lowering measurements in their specifications, as that contributed to the sufferings of the masses.

Chief Emeka Duru, Senior Special Assistant to the DG, said that SON would soon return to the country’s borders to ensure that products entering the country were of high standards.

Chief Humphrey Ngonadi, President, South-East Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture appealed to SON to help check the activities of substandard producers and importers.

He said that the organisation should equally look into the activities of its officers abroad to ensure they only allow quality products to be imported into the country.

Dr Celestine Akaolisa, the guest speaker whose topic was, “The Role of Standard in Nation Industrialization”, suggested that importers and exporters should register with SON to closely monitor their operations.