SON Seizes, Destroys Substandard Goods Worth N23bn
The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has seized and destroyed goods worth N23 billion this year.
Director-general, SON, Osita Aboloma, represented by the director, Compliance, Engr. Obiora Mmanfa, made this disclosure in Lagos.
He hinted that some other substandard goods that include thousands of electric cables, stuffed tyres and cylinders in its warehouse waiting for further investigation and analysis would also suffer the same fate. “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,” the SON top official reassured.
He affirmed that SON would intensify efforts to tighten the noose where most of these goods found their way into the shores of the country, stating that the agency would not allow people who cut corners to cheat unsuspecting consumers in the country as the agency remained a business facilitator established to help genuine businesses to grow. “We are here to destroy some 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. Some of the products include cables, motorcycle tubes, extension sockets, cylinders and unfortified sugar. 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,” he said, Source: Leadership