The Director Generaleneral of Standards Organistion of Nigeria (SON), Osita Aboloma has said that, most of the products that are sold in Alaba international market, Ojo, Lagos State, are life threatening to consumers.
Aboloma who made this known yesterday in Lagos during a partnership meeting with the Association of Nigerian licensed Customs Agents ( ANLCA) and Association of Electronic Dealers on effective and quality service delivery disclosed that, we have raised the bar, and informed them accordingly. Anything that is not up to international best practice or Nigerian minimum standards, will be seriously frawned at. He added
Going forward, he continued “we will give them the benefit of doubt, that they will do the right thing. But, basically, coming under an association does exonorate people from a deliberate attempt to reduce the quality of the products that are being sold to Nigerian consumers. We will continue to hold them collectively and individually liable for nonconformity to our standards.” He noted.
Reacting to questions on automation, he disclosed that, “our automation is flawless, it reduces the turnaround time for clearing. By the way, I will let you know this, we have automation in respect to products registration, and we also have automation in respect to pre-shipment document, that’s SONCAP.”
According to him, “this is what you do first. You get our documents certifications before you ship goods to Nigeria. It’s a clearing documents per say. So, when somebody deliberately misinformed the public that he incurred demorage because of SONCAP, that amount to false claim. Because you cannot ship in your goods into Nigeria without some form of qualify certifications. It makes our job easier without compromising the quality of goods that comes into Nigeria.
Also speaking on the partnership, the national president of the Association of Nigerian licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Iju Tony Nwabunike said; “we want to partner with SON in the area of ease of doing business, making things work seemlessly in the port.”
According to him, “the federal government through the vice president of Nigeria, Yomi Osibajo is championing a campaign on the ease of doing business, and what we want is a situation where all the agencies in the port and stakeholders like us will be working in tenderm to achieve that result.”
“therefore, we seek to draw the attention of the federal government through SON to some areas of our members on clearification of issue related to border line products between SON/NAFDAC on products such as: diaper, engine oil, packaging product, cotton buds, etc.” He added
While commenting on automation, he pointed out that, SON have upgraded their standards, and they are doing wonderfully well. So, it’s about getting patience with what they are doing, because it’s all about automation and increasing the capacity and the standards of what they are doing.”
The Director general of SON, Osita Aboloma said, the partnership is a welcome development as one of their madates is to facilitate trade at the port. The partnership will benefit both parties as far as all of them remain within the limit of law.
