Don't Miss


Home   >   Business   >   Industries   >   Freight forwarders question SON’s competence

Freight forwarders question SON’s competence

By on October 18, 2014

Freight forwarders in the country have questioned the competence of the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) in the assessment of goods produced in Nigeria or imported into the country.
The freight forwarders under the aegis of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) said it was wrong for SON to be the sole organisation regulating the quality of products manufactured in Nigeria or imported into the country.
National President, NAGAFF,  Chief Eugene Nweke in a chat with reporters in Lagos questioned SON’s competence and the monopoly it enjoys in the execution of its brief.
“There is need for independent product conformity assessment bodies, also known as accreditors. These are professional bodies or associations of industries in the private sector,” he said.
According to him, the proposed accreditors were a necessity against the backdrop that the trading and consuming public seems to have lost confidence in SON’s Conformity Assessment Programme (SONCAP) and the Mandatory Conformity Assessment Programme (MANCAP). SON’s conformity assurance system called to question the organisation’s competence.
He said,  “This is so because most products bearing SONCAP/MANCAP certification littering the market. They are obviously substandard products failing the national standardisation. It is the right and duty of national legislation to accredit standardisation body acting naturally with it. Recall that product testing and certification is aimed at evaluating the quality of the product itself which the assurance system by a professional body is aimed to assuring the purchaser that the manufacturer of such product has in place a viable and effective system that is capable of producing product of consistent quality with little or no variation.”
While noting that, ideally, the trading public relies on the manufacturer’s declaration that the product so purchased meets standard, Nweke said that the relevance of standardisation could  be over-emphasised, because standards depend greatly on the level of confidence reposed in the manufacturer’s statement that the product meets a particular standard by the trader.

 

 

[This Day]