SON partners Chinese govt to end importation of substandard products

Worried by the growing rate of imported substandard products through the nation’s seaport, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) says it’s perfecting plans to enter into partnership with the Chinese government, which is targeted at ridding Nigerian market of fake and substandard products in the next three months.

To achieve this, SON will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Chinese government to enable quality control on all Nigerian billed cargoes coming from China, which controls over 40 percent of Nigerian import market.

Paul Angya, acting director General of SON, who disclosed this at a recent interactive session with port industry stakeholders held in Lagos, said that he was with President Muhammadu Buhari in China recently where several MOUs were signed at different levels, but the organisation was able to secure a firm undertaking from the Chinese government to deal with importation of substandard products.

“They will be coming to Nigeria to do so and in the next three months, we will see the results especially when importers travel to China to import products. We are going to sanitise the system,” the SON boss assured.

Lamenting on the attitude of Nigerian importers, whom he accused of deliberately thwarting the system, Angya stated that more than 60 percent of imports into Nigerian markets are without SONCAP certificates.

“Importers are supposed to process their Form ‘M’ before ordering goods. And it is with the Form ‘M’ that the person orders the imports, which are subject to SON certification. But the importers deliberately refuse to take their goods to SON inspection agents overseas, to certify the goods before shipment,” he explained.

Another reason why there is influx of imported substandard products into the country, he pointed out, is that SON is also not invited to be part of examination process at the port. This is why 99 percent of imported products in the country are substandard.

On this, the agency has open discussions with the Comptroller General of Customs on the need to give SON operatives greater access into the ports. “The CG has set up a joint committee which is working out modalities to give SON more access to the port. We only know what is coming into the ports when we are invited to the examination process. This is also why we apprehend containers on the road.”

However, the agency says its re-opening the e-Provisional Clearance Certificate (e-PCC) window for the next three months, starting from April 25 to July 24 2016 to enable consignment whose Form ‘M’ has been approved prior to September 10 2015, when SOCAP was integrated into Customs NICIS to be cleared.

Angya stated that the agency’s decision to re-open the e-PCC window was in response to the plea from many stakeholders and he emphasised that the window will be closed completely after the next three months owing to the fact that SON believes that importers are using the provisional window to manipulate agencies like SON, Customs, and others.

The e-PCC window implies that any consignment using the window has neither valid SON Certificates nor valid e-Import Permits. Importers, clearing agents and other stakeholders are expected to use the 90 days window approved by SON for the clearance of consignments under this category, which are said to be at the port or have already been shipped prior to September 10 2015.

CHIGOZIE EGWUATU