Standards Organization of Nigeria
The Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON) has stated that inter company collaborations to check the inflow of fake and substandard goods into the nation have been yielding fruits.
The Director General, SON, Osita Aboloma, defined that efficient collaborations with sister companies remained the surest method to finish the menace of substandard goods edging out high quality goods, within the nation.
The SON boss said this throughout the hand-over of a 40 ft container by the Nigeria Customs Service (SON) to SON on Wednesday in Lagos stocked with fake and substandard Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders.
Aboloma who was represented on the train by the Director, Compliance, Bede Obayi, also stated that so many containers would have handed via the nation’s seaports unchecked, stating the pressing want to check these substandard goods earlier than they go away the ports.
“We do not have to chase these containers on the highways. It is just a waste of time, resources and very unsafe for our officials. These goods are better stopped before entering the country. Nigeria is a very big country and SON cannot be everywhere at the same time to intercept these goods,” he mentioned.
He defined that the handing over was one other demonstration of the collaboration between federal authorities companies in direction of tackling the preponderance of fake and substandard merchandise within the nation.
“We have been monitoring that container from the ports and thru intelligence gathering and help from the NCS, we have been in a position to intercept these goods earlier than they acquired into the households of the unsuspecting Nigerian customers.
“We will stop at nothing to reduce the level of substandard goods in the country and we have also deployed different initiatives to ensure that this country is rid of substandard products”, he additionally mentioned.
He nevertheless stated that utilizing the substandard LPG cylinders would pose critical menace to lives and property, advising importers to register their merchandise with the company to stop future occurrences of fireside outbreaks in Nigerian properties.
“We have put all the required particulars to guarantee traceability, if there's any case to recall these merchandise, we now have all particulars to guarantee we get these merchandise.
We are telling Nigerians who need to go and import cylinders that the federal authorities has inspired using LPG cylinders, however this doesn't imply importers ought to import substandard LPG cylinders.
We can not permit these unscrupulous importers to kill harmless Nigerians, for this reason we now have put all the protection pointers for importing LPG cylinders,” he said.
Earlier, the Comptroller, Federal Operations Unit (FOU) (A) Ikeja, Lagos of Customs, Muhammed Uba, mentioned the container was intercepted on the freeway primarily based on data, saying that the rationale for the interception was that the importers failed to present related customized papers.
He also stated that after cross examination of the container, NCS found an extra of N504,000 excise obligation which was not paid by the importer.