Ime Akpan
The director general of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Mr. Osita Aboloma has said that the agency destroyed than N22.7 billion worth of substandard goods in 2018.
Aboloma who disclosed this in Lagos at the weekend vowed that NAFDAC would intensify its efforts to tighten the noose at where most of the substandard goods find their way into Nigeria.
“We have been destroying substandard products over time. For this year alone, NAFDAC has destroyed over N22.7 billion worth of products. While some have been destroyed, some are awaiting destruction. We have thousands of electric cables, stuffed tyres and cylinders in our warehouse waiting for further investigation and analysis,” he added.
Aboloma therefore appealed to dealers in such products to stop wasting their money importing them saying “these goods would end up being destroyed if intercepted.
The director general said the agency would do all it could to protect the lives of Nigerians against using unwholesome products.
“Please stop wasting your money importing substandard goods; we cannot afford to compromise on quality because the lives and property of Nigerians are paramount and our primary responsibility is to protect Nigerians from these goods that are injurious to families and the nation at large.
“We…destroy substandard products we intercepted at the borders, we tested them and found out that they are substandard and expired. We do not want these products to find their way into the markets because they are harmful to human lives,” he said.
Some of the products were cables, motorcycle tubes, extension sockets, cylinders and unfortified sugar.
He said SON could not be happy destroying the goods because such action brings nothing but drain on the economy and hard-earned foreign exchange.
He said SON is a business facilitator established to help genuine businesses to grow.
“Our message to the importers is that we are not happy destroying these goods because it is a drain to the national economy and our hard-earned foreign exchange. Importers pay foreign exchange to import these products and when they bring them in, we seize and destroy them. This is not good for anybody. We are appealing to them to do the right thing. Comply with our standards because we will not allow people who cut corners to cheat unsuspecting consumers in the country. We have our standards in all our state offices across the country; feel free to come in anytime to obtain these standards before importing goods into the country,” he advised.
He added: “We have many items to be destroyed here and more are coming. Once we conclude the investigation going through these products in our laboratory to check for conformity and they fail, we will bring them down here and destroy. This is a continuous process and we will not stop till we achieve our mandate of safeguarding the lives and property of Nigerians.”
