SON’s Lab to the Rescue
In order to become competitive, Nigeria’s products must meet stipulated global standards. Fortunately, SON’s new, globally accredited laboratory is set to end the country’s dependence on Ghana for product certification, Crusoe Osagie reports
Certainly, the Nigerian Economy is in dire straits. As long as crude oil prices hover around $50 per barrel, the country will struggle to keep pace with its obligations. Only a rapid increase in inflow from non-oil export can reverse the trend.
Sadly, according to analysts, the poor and down trodden with little or no access to direct financial flow from the government will be the worst hit.
Budget experts are convinced that the sharp decline in the nation’s revenue will take its toll mostly on capital projects, which are unfortunately the only things, which the government directly give to the masses.
The whole talk of running lean governments are mere political statements, usually not backed with actual will and resolve. With Nigerian lawmakers being among the most highly paid in the world, Senators are still going to earn their fabulous allowances and so will the members of the House of Representatives and state assemblies.
Security votes for governors and other political office holders certainly will not be cut downwards and one way or the other, the retinue of aides who accompany politicians in office will very unlikely reduce. Party men must be compensated with political appointments.
The certain budgetary cut backs, due to the reduced earnings, which the country is going to see, will unfortunately be in the form of fewer roads constructed, industrial and agricultural incentives removed, budgetary allocation for power transmission staggered, budget for public schools and municipal water supply generation reduced and the list is endless.
As it always turns, only the resource-poor and down trodden in society, whose only direct benefit from government are the infrastructure that are put in place will feel the real pinch of the nation’s declining revenue.
This therefore underscores the importance of intensifying the search for revenue from other sectors apart from oil and gas.
The standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) therefore deserves commendation for some steps it has taken to remove some of the so called non-tariff barriers to trade, which have kept Nigeria’s export products out of the international market. Global Rejection of Nigeria Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, recently hinted that around 103 Nigeria export products were rejected at the global market in the last five years, for not meeting acceptable international quality standards.
Aganga said this last week during the unveiling of the new office complex of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria(SON) in Abuja and attributed the volume of the rejects to lack of accredited laboratory in the country where the products could be tested before being ship abroad.
He, however, said Nigeria through the efforts of SON and its helmsman, Dr. Joseph Odumodu, now has an internationally accredited laboratory in Lagos which would help to check the drift.
According to him, since the SON laboratory meets international standards of best practice, any product tested there would be acceptable anywhere outside the country, thereby saving the millions of dollars being lost by Nigeria and its manufacturers whose products were constantly rejected in the past.
He said: “We all say we want to diversify the economy with a view to increasing our income from non-oil products. But there is no way we can achieve this without having quality infrastructure such as the laboratory.
“For instance, we could not export yam to the UK because we did not have a laboratory to test it here. Those who exported some products from Nigeria in the past will have to take them to Ghana to test them and the credit goes to Ghana. In the last five years Nigeria has had more than 103 rejects. If you compare that to other African countries like South Africa and Ghana, who only have between 6 to 7 rejects, our’s is unacceptable. We were having these rejects because we did not have accredited laboratory in the country, a problem which SON and Odumodu have checked considerably.
“However, we can confidently say we are addressing that challenge now. About two days ago (last week), I commissioned a new internationally accredited laboratory in Lagos. It is first time ever that we will be having such an accredited laboratory with such scope, twelve scopes.”
Besides, he stated that his ministry had implemented over 60 reform programmes and about twelve game-changing projects in the bid to put the country on the path of industrialisation.
The SON Director General, Odumodu, stated that he had repositioned the organisation both in terms of personnel, physical infrastructure and legislation to enable it discharge on its mandate which, according to him, is pivotal to the economic diversification of Nigeria.
Apart from various policy initiatives, Odumodu stated that in the last four years, the organisation had been able to engage in infrastructure development.
Some of them, according to the DG include, the remodelling of the SON Lekki office complex, the upgrading of physical laboratory structures and facilities in Lekki, leading to accreditation, renovation and upgrading of the Enugu Mechanical Laboratory, equipping and operation of the laboratory and construction of the 4-storey laboratory edifice of SON in Ogba, Lagos. Home-Grown Product Certification
The Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment stressed that the SON internationally accredited microbiology laboratory will put an end to the spate of Nigeria’s non-oil products being rejected at the international market.
Aganga said the country’s image had been dented due to huge amount of rejects, maintaining that Nigeria, the giant of Africa still had to depend on Ghana to export its products to the world.
“I am delighted to say that the era of Nigeria’s agro-allied export products being rejected under the guise of not meeting sanitary and phytosanitary requirements are now coming to a great end,” he said.
In his words: “It gladdens my heart that the laboratory’s accreditation is in the process of being expanded to cover areas of micro nutrient, cable, refrigeration and cement in construction material. This is only the beginning. The laboratory is an integral part of the national quality infrastructure we are building for Nigeria. It is a shame that as a nation after 50 years, we never had and this is what this administration is leaving behind. For the first time in history, we now have a quality policy which took us a long time.”
According to him, the number of rejects in major foreign market between 2012 and 2013 revealed that Benin republuc had 2 rejects, Egypt had 95, Ethiopia 3, Zambia 5, South Africa 56 while Nigeria recorded 102 .
He said the plummeting oil price is a wake up call as a country , saying that Nigeria can no longer rely on one product for foreign exchange.
“That time has come and gone. This is why we launched the NIRP to add value to all our commodities. Going forward, this is not about exporting crude oil but selling crude oil to Nigerian companies creating jobs for this country and also produce petroleum products here in the country which we spend more $15 million importing petroleum products into the country. We will save that and become a net exporter of petroleum products by 2018. It is not all about agriculture because Nigeria is a blessed nation with 44 solid minerals in commercial quantity,” he said. A Team Effort Odumodu stressed that the agency would not have achieved the feat, if not for the support of the ministry of trade and investment, saying that the SON has received a lot of support from the minister to get the laboratory up and running.
“We achieved what we have today without any foreign or international consultant. We decided that we can do this ourselves and with the kind of management we gave to our people we were able to achieve this great feat.
He said going forward, there would be more laboratories to complement the effort of the newly commissioned laboratory.
“I want to invite you to avail yourself of the laboratories we have here and the more that will come in the future, “he said. Export promotion now Plausible The Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Export Promotion Council, Mr. Segun Awolowo, said some of the factors responsible for the rejection of exported food item include non compliance with regulatory requirement for processed and semi-processed commodities, non compliance with documentation requirements, incorrect filling of information for entry, inadequate information and know-how on the entry requirement for food imports to the European Union and the United Kingdom.
He noted that developing countries including Nigeria seem to face considerable problems in meeting basic food safety and hygiene requirements for importing food items to developed countries, saying that a recent world bank report estimated that developing countries will lose about $6.9 billion by 2015 to rejections of their of their exported food items.
“It is therefore of immense challenge to meet standards requiring more sophisticated monitoring. The current trend in food safety and quality management is a shift from end product testing to a systematic preventive approach that employs the identification of hazards and establishment of preventive measures to reduce or eliminate such hazards during food processing,” he said.
He said other factors include high level of pesticide residue, presence of mycotoxins, heavy metals, high microbal load, presence of foreign matters, fumigation level and the likes.
He said it is pertinent to commend SON for this noble effort at the launching of these laboratories coming up after SON’s spearheading role in the setting up of the national quality infrastructure project funded by the European union and implemented by the United Nation Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO).
“it is envisaged that with the setting up of the Nigeria National Accreditation Service (NINAS), Nigeria’s non-oil exportable products will compete favourably with others in the international markets.