SON Holds Stakeholders Forum in Lagos

The Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON), last week, held an interactive Stake Holders forum with the theme “A Tool for Enhancing Industrial Development in Nigeria”. In attendance were the Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Mr. Humphrey Abbah; Director General/Chief Executive of SONCAP, Dr. John Ndansa Akanya; and other chief executives of federal agencies/parastatals and captains of  the industry. The Minister, in his key note address, explained that the reason for the forum is to come up with the best solution for eradicating the scourge of substandard good importation. Part of this, he said, is the recent engagement of two (TUV Rheiland Group and Societe Generale de Surveillance SGS) additional experienced Programme Management Companies (PMC’s) to complement the effort of Intertek International Services, the pioneer PMC.
The Minister said that one of the leakages in the system is the issue of waver and exemption, and so, has instructed SON to ensure that everybody complies with the requirements of the SONCAP certifications, and the compliance must be done at the entries of goods coming into Nigeria. In his words, “Every organization, no matter how big, must comply with the requirement of SONCAP certifications. This is the simple massage we want to pass across all Stake Holders.”