The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has concluded plans to pursue a national quality policy to curb the saga of sub-standard products in the country.
Already, the agency has received an approval for the establishment of a National Accreditation Service in the country within the next four weeks, to ensure that any accreditation given in Nigeria would be credible anywhere else in the world.
Director-General of the agency, Dr Joseph Odumodu, who gave this indication at an interaction with journalists in Lagos Wednesday, said the policy would radically transform the quality consciousness of manufacturers and consumers in the country.
Odumodu said the policy has become imperative given realties in global markets on the one hand as well as the fact that government has a responsibility to efficiently manage regulations to protect society.
According to him, such a policy would also help the government to provide supportive standards to aid industries and ensure that operators conform to globally accepted requirements in their industrial and trading processes.
Odumodu stressed that the SON would pursue the policy because it does not want discrepancies in testing exercises aimed at ascertaining the quality level of products manufactured or sold in the country.
He said nobody would be able to stop the national quality process once it takes off as it would be backed up from the highest level of government.
He explained that the new resolve would leverage effectively from the planned meteorology facility, which his organisation is building in the Ogba area of Lagos, adding that it would ensure efficient and accurate calibration of equipment used in the country.
“We need to enhance the confidence of anyone who buys a product bearing the Nigerian mark of quality. In the past we have not effectively participated in international elaboration of standards, which is not good for us; that is part of what we would be doing henceforth in pursuit of our agenda of global relevance,” he said.
Odumodu added that the SON has rejigged the Standards Organisation of Nigeria Conformity Assessment Programme and the remodeled version would be taking off on February 1, while a May deadline has been set for companies, which have not completed their e-registration processes to do so.
“By May, any product without e-registration code would be removed from the shelves, irrespective of whether they have been accredited or not. We need to know who is bringing which product and the e-registration exercise is to ensure that products have duly been registered”, Odumodu said
The SON director-general reiterated that the campaign to rid the country of sub-standard products is not a fight for the SON alone, but a concerted one to which all well-meaning Nigerians should enlist in.
He said the SON in line with emerging realities was changing its strategy to be able to connect with the world in the fight against sub-standardisation.