SON expresses readiness for AfCFTA implications
Joy Obakeye
The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has said it is prepared for the imminent implications of Nigeria’s signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement recently by the President.
This was disclosed in a statement by the Director-General of SON, Mr Osita Aboloma, in Abuja.
According to Aboloma, preparatory steps towards the free movement of goods and services include the development of Standards for artisanship such as carpentry, masonry, fashion design, painting among many others to ensure a free exchange of the services particularly within West Africa.
Aboloma acknowledged the imminent challenge of combating the possibility of dumping of substandard and life-endangering products through the seaports since the agency was not present to at the ports to carry out quality verification of products on arrival.
He, however, stressed that SON staff would continue to deploy all strategies including the use of automation, intelligence gathering and compliance monitoring to protect Nigerian Consumers from the menace of substandard and life-endangering products within available resources.
The SON Chief Executive extolled the existing robust collaboration among sister regulatory and security agencies in the fight against substandard products, but called for greater synergy.
He said the organisation had been working in close collaboration with other Ministries, Agencies and Departments (MADs) of government as well as development partners to develop the National Quality Infrastructure (NQI) to cater to the free movement of goods and services in Africa.
