Manufacturing: African countries set to get quality policy for goods

African countries have commenced the process of drafting a Pan-African quality policy to standardise services and goods manufactured on the continent in readiness for the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

Speaking at the consultative workshop on the development of the policy in Abuja, the Director General of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Osita Aboloma, said the development of the policy could go further to position the continent for the challenges of today and the future in the exchange of goods and services with the rest of the world for mutual benefit without putting Africa at a disadvantage.

Aboloma said AfCFTA further emphasised the urgent need for a PanAfrican quality policy to ensure that the objectives of the agreement were realised for the collective benefit of the continent and its people.

“On the part of Nigeria, we have over the years collectively worked assiduously to develop our National Quality Infrastructure (NQI) projects to meet the imminent challenges of a continental free flow of goods and services,” he said.

The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Edet Sunday Akpan, said the signing of AfCFTA by many nations in Africa further emphasised the need for the development of a pan-African quality policy document to ensure synergy, reduce duplication of efforts, ensure harmonisation of standards and conformity assessment procedures.

Akpan said Nigeria, through SON, which is Nigeria’s apex standardisation institution, had been playing an active role along with other stakeholders in the harmonisation of standards and conformity assessment procedures within ECOWAS and the continent through the platform of the African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO).

He said the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment also coordinated the drafting of a national quality policy document.

“This document is awaiting approval of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to provide necessary guidance and harmony to the various quality infrastructural projects being developed by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA’s), as well as the organised private sector stakeholders,” he said.