SON Warns Manufacturers, SMEs Against Fake Products

• SON Warns Manufacturers, SMEs Against Fake Products

The Director-General, Standards Organisation of Nigeria, Mr. Osita Aboloma, has urged manufacturers and importers as well as the Small and Medium Enterprises to desist from manufacturing and importing substandard products.

He stated that offenders would be dealt with according to the law, warning that they would also lose their investments.

He reiterated the commitment of SON to confiscate and destroy all substandard and fake products imported into the country or manufactured locally.

Aboloma, who was represented by the Group Head, Chemical Technology, SON, Mr. Agboola Afoloyan, spoke on Wednesday on the sidelines of SON’s presentation of Mandatory Conformity Assessment Programme to Polar

Petrochemicals Limited, in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital.

He commended the management of Polar Petrochemicals Limited for living up to its obligation and mandate to meet the yearnings of its customers in the provision of quality lubricating oils, which he said was legendry and worth emulating by all manufacturers in the country.

The SON DG also called on Nigerians to patronise made-in-Nigeria products to stimulate economic and industrial development as well as wealth and job creations, adding that they could compete with similar products manufactured elsewhere in the world.

Aboloma said, “By this certification, the company’s name and products are already on the SON website and can be accessed all over the world. The certification has also licensed the company to market its products beyond the shores of this country.”

The Managing Director, Polar Petrochemical Limited, Mr. Muideen Babalola, who expressed delight at his company’s MANCAP certification, lamented that adulteration products had negatively impacted on investment and industrial growth of the country as well as the safety and well-being of the people.

He called for stiffer punishment for culprits, whom he accused of sabotaging national economy, job and wealth creations as well as scaring investors away from the country.

Babalola said, “Our major challenge, aside from the systemic problem, is adulteration of products. Most of the factories in the country are facing the problem of adulteration. Aside from electricity, funding and the recession that we just exited, the major impact is adulteration.

“Adulteration has negative environmental impact; it also creates unemployment. Some of these people who are adulterating do not have any investment. They just sit in their houses, churn out products and sell them.

“That has a lot of damage to the system. The environment is going to be polluted; people are going to be out of jobs; those who have genuine investment, even the foreigners here, do not have anything to go with. So businesses are collapsing. Aside from that, the use of fake oils affects other plants. When the engine knocks, it affects vehicles and machinery. The effect is bad. We need SON to really help us to do something about it.”