SON targets more laboratories, trains staff

THE Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has announced plans to establish more laboratories in the country, noting that the move was to ensure that all goods produced locally and imported meet the minimum requirement of the Nigerian Industrial Standards (NIS).

The Director General, SON, Osita Aboloma, stated that the standards body is determined to put the nation’s products in the international markets, pointing out that to achieve this feat, the agency has been equipping its staff with the requisite knowledge and technical knowhow required for the smooth operations of the agency’s accredited laboratories across the country.

The SON boss represented by the Director Special Duties, Mohammed Kabir stated this during the ISO/IEC laboratory accreditation implementation course held at its training centre in Ogba area of Lagos recently.

He stated that the threeday course was one of such programmes to enable the existing accredited laboratories of SON to implement the most current standard released in November 2017.

In his words, ‘‘It is on record that in 2017, over 40 training sessions were carried out by the unit as against three of such programmes offered in 2016. There was also a remarkable improvement in the turnover from this division. As part of the readjustment in the efficient and effective running of the organization, services that can be delivered within the organization are patronized, thereby saving cost that would have been expended on external parties.’’