The Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON) has dismissed fears over the legality or otherwise of it Standards Organization of Nigeria Conformity Assessment Programme (SONCAP) saying that it was not aware of any issue around its legality or otherwise.
The National President of the National Council of Managing Directors of Customs Licensed Agents (NCMDLCA), Mr. Lucky Amiwero had in a presentation at a public forum organized by SON in Lagos recently, raised a question over the legality or otherwise of SONCAP calling for it to be tied to a law.
However, the Director-General of SON, Dr. Joseph Odumodu said that SONCAP was a policy of the Federal Government and that he was not aware that there were issues around its legality and that there was nothing like duplication in that regard.
Odumodu disclosed that although SONCAP was normally done abroad but people may not know that not every item that is shipped into the country that is tested adding that it was only the sample that was being tested.
According to him,” if they have to test for example, a transformer that is coming to Nigeria, the SONCAP fee cannot be $300, it could be sometimes $5000. Indeed, there are people who pay up to $5000 for testing their goods abroad. So, it is the sample that is tested”.
“Secondly, we also have seen a situation where people forged SONCAP. I have been to China and I pretended I was an importer and somebody was hawking SONCAP to me at $100. A Chinese was hawking SONCAP, he said to me, give me $100 and I will give you SONCAP tomorrow and that was an eye opener to me because when he actually brought the SONCAP, it was original”.
“So, what that tells me is that there are also issues we need to deal with, so the fact is one, not all that are tested, two, there can be fake SONCAPs and three, there are products that when you tell a Nigerian, if you are shipping to Nigeria, you need SONCAP then he will say no, I am shipping to Benin Republic, then he does not ask for SONCAP but we know that the product will ultimately be coming to Nigeria”.
He therefore pleaded with Nigerians to understand that the officials of the agency were not stupid in adopting the extra measures they put in place so as to checkmate the incidences of fake and sub-standard products in the country.
