The Acting Director-General of the Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON), Dr. Paul Angya, has said that China was proving difficult to deal with in his agency’s fight against the influx of sub-standard goods into the country. He mentioned this at a just –concluded two-day SON Capacity Development Retreat for Media Practitioners in Lagos, Leadership News reports.
Angya explained that China, who is the highest producer of many goods in the world and responsible for 90% of Nigerian imports, refused to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the agency on Certificate of Free Sale for Nigeria which allows only certified standard goods to be exported to Nigeria from China.
Lamenting the situation, he said that China had willingly signed the same MoU with other countries including America, which ensured that only products of the best quality were imported into those countries.
“Out of 10 products in America, eight are from China and they are of the best quality, but out of 10 products in Nigeria, nine are from China and they are substandard,” Angya said.
He further stated that, as Nigerians, we were not helping ourselves in this regard, as the influx of sub-standard goods through the seaports has tripled since the instruction for SON to remove its physical presence from the seaports, through which majority of imported goods come through.
Leadership News states that the DG said that the efforts to stop containers on their land routes were minimal at best, as they cannot cover more than 10% of all containers using this method. He hinted that massive importation of substandard goods into the country has forced the SON to close the Electronic Provisional Clearance Certificate (ePCC) platform due to its abuse.
As such, he called for the FG to allow the Agency resume its physical presence on the seaports to stem the tide of substandard imported goods.
Parts of this article originally appeared in Leadership News.
