Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), has alerted the Federal Government of massive influx of substandard goods into the country.
Director-General of the organization, Dr. Paul Angya gave this while chatting with newsmen.
He said with this development, SON has shutdown the Electronic Provisional Clearance Certificate (ePCC) platform after the 90 days expiration elapsed this year.
The D-G said SON has been having it tough with importers who have refused to align themselves with the legal platform to process their Soncap.
Angya explained that the Soncap process is carried out online without the intervention of any member of staff of SON, this development follows the scrapping of hard copy papers for effective and better.
According to the D-G, “We have a problem with importers of goods because they are cheating. They are manipulating the importation regime of goods to the country with the import of their goods.”
“On that platform, if you are bringing in any product without SON certificate of compliance which is called Soncap, you will not be cleared to bring in those goods because the CBN will not issue you Form M through which you can import.”
“So that platform enabled us to see almost everybody who is importing which was not the case before. Today those who were beating the system are having challenges.
“The importers are avoiding the quality verification process that was established by the government to verify the quality of goods they import into Nigeria which has resulted in the complete overrunning of the country.”
“We have over the last few months evaluated the system and discovered that the substandard products are majorly from China and other Asian countries,” Angya noted.
