Son Restates Commitment to Fight against Substandard Products
Jonathan Eze
The Director General, Standards Organisation of Nigeria ( SON), Osita Aboloma, has stated that with the reinvigorated SON Act 2015, the standards body has the mandate to police the whole country to ensure that substandard goods do not find their way into the hands of unsuspecting Nigerian consumer.
The SON boss, who was represented by the Director, Enforcement and Compliance, Bede Obayi at an enforcement exercise to different warehouses in Lagos, urged importers to always consult SON for quality control guidelines before importing goods into the country. This he said will give their products certificate of free sales without unnecessary hindrances from different regulatory agencies
Aboloma said: We want to ensure that as people consume these products, it will be the same as those who are sending the products to us. We want to have a certificate of free sale that once we are consuming these products, we are sure the quality is same as to where the products are coming from. We want to let importers of these goods to know that Nigeria is supposed to be a safe country for all of us and so if you want to import any product, you must follow all the quality control guidelines set down by the SON.”
He added: “We have two policies which are the MANCAP for madein- Nigeria products and the SONCAP for imported products. We want people to be sure whenever they are consuming these goods that they would not harm them while also getting value for the money spent on these products. SON is saying that there is no boundary in terms of the enforcement of this mandate, wherever we see these products, we would take them out and if you comply with our requirements, you will not experience any hindrance taking these products from the ports, borders into the markets, but when you do not follow the laid down rules, we will go into the warehouses to pick out these products.”
“This is why we are moving from warehouse to warehouse, markets to markets, roads to borders so that we will be sure that nobody leaves these points with substandard products into the country. Nigerians rely so much on the capacity of the SON officials who have been adequately trained to ensure that these products do not get into the markets. We have picked up some products and all of them would be properly assessed, we must find out how they came in, find out their quality characteristics by testing because our labs are now properly equipped. Wherever these products are found we would recall them and that is the essence of this enforcement exercise.”
According to him, quality is the same all over the world, stressing that SON is a member of ISO where standards are being developed in close collaborations with stakeholders from different sectors of the global economy network.
He assured importers and manufacturers of the agency’s commitment to create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive, therefore advising importers to desist from the illicit trade of substandard products.