The Managing Director ofWAYE Water, Jos, Mr Salias Dung, has urged the federal government to establish testing laboratories for the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) in each of the six geo-political zones of the country.
Dung made the call, Friday in Jos when his company and three other companies were awarded the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) Mandatory Conformity Assessment Programme(MANCAP) Certification.
According to him, the only testing laboratory owned by SON in Lagos State is grossly inadequate to test all products produced in Nigeria before they are awarded the MANCAP certification.
He said the availability of only one laboratory in the country for such tests made the exercise rigorous and time consuming.
The managing director said it took his company two years to acquire the MANCAP certification, saying this had retarded the growth of his business as without the certification, his product wasn’t allowed into the open market.
He also appealed that the federal government to fast track the pace of indigenous manufactures acquiring the MANCAP certification as it would encourage them and make their products exportable to other ECOWAS countries.
On his part, the State Coordinator SON, Jos, Mr Musa George, advised the general public to stop purchasing manufactured products without SON’s certification.
George said products without SON certification pushed to the market illegally could be detrimental to the public as they had not met the requirements for quality and safety.
He said that every product that had met the requirements of the Nigerian Industrial Standards was safe and certified with either a MANCAP or a NIS (Nigerian Mark of Quality) sign.
He said the organisation ensured that all manufactured products complied with NIS requirements before their introduction into the market.
The coordinator said the aim was to promote consumer confidence and global competitiveness of Nigerian goods and services.
He called on the awardees to ensure that they adhered to SON standard as their products could still be subjected to regular surveillance.
He warned that the MANCAP certificate could be withdrawn if their products failed to conform with the minimum standard or if the company abused the rules of the usage of the MANCAP logo.
George also cautioned them against using the logo and number on other products that had not been certified.
