Taiwo Hassan 
The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has disclosed that plans are underway to return to the nation’s land borders to check influx of fake and substandard products into the country. The Director General of SON, Malam Farouk Salim, made this known at a oneday Stakeholders’ Forum with the theme; “Building Confidence Value in Local Products via Standardisation” on Friday in Awka, Anambra State. Salim called for the co-operation of stakehold-ers toward achieving standardisation of services and products in the country. He stressed the need for other agencies involved in the task of ensuring standard to partner with the agency to achieve better results.
Salim said that standardisation was a global issue and that Nigeria could not afford to lag behind in the comity of nations 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 of Anambra Regional Operations, SON, said that the federal government’s policy that uncertified products should not be sold in the country must be supported. The DG called on educational institutions, and hotels to subscribe to relevant international standards to enable them to be reckoned with.
He 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 of National Metrology Institute of SON, called on industrialists to ensure that their measurement tools were accurate to avoid production of substandard products.
