SON equips staff with ADR techniques to cut costs
In a bid to enhance service delivery and quicken stakeholders’ adoption and compliance to stipulated standards, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has equipped its staff with Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) techniques.
Osita Aboloma, director general, SON, said the move was aimed at saving costs while also mitigating the suspension of economic activities that might arise from enforcing its statutory regulatory functions on importers of sub-standard goods to the country.
Aboloma said ADR had been used as an instrument of standardisation and quality assurance in developing most economies across the world hence, adding that Nigeria needed follow the trend in its quest to achieve economic growth and development.
The SON boss, during the flag off of the ADR training of SON state coordinators in the Northern, Zone, in Abuja recently, stated that the ADR became necessary to complement the Federal government’s ease of doing business policy, pointing out that the agency was equipping its state heads across the federation with techniques across global trend on dispute resolution.
According to him, SON had so far trained about 40 of its staff from different departments on ADR and plans to train many more. Aboloma stated that ADR provides greater choices for settlement of disputes and misunderstandings in the workplace, businesses and private interactions under a win situation.
Although the general provisions in the new SON Act has empowered the agency to prosecute perpetrators of substandard products manufacture, importation and distribution while also providing stiffer penalties for convictions including jail terms, the agency is exploring measures at resolving conflicts without wasting resources or stalling economic activities.
Aboloma said the agency had been empowering its staff with skills to handle conflicts that might arise from complaints handling, market survey and stakeholders engagement, adding that it was strengthening its internal mechanisms to combat substandard products head on while urging all Nigerians to join hands with SON in order to create greater opportunities for genuine and certified locally manufactured products to thrive.
The DG pledged the agency’s total commitment to protecting the lives and property of Nigerians as well its economy using the instruments of standardisation and quality assurance.
Some of the participants commended the SON management under the leadership of Aboloma for the step to train staff, adding that it was in the right step in the right direction.
According to the participants, the training would go a long way in fast-tracking ease of doing businesses in the country while also settling disputes without litigations.’
Meanwhile, the agency also inaugurated a committee on impartiality, to enhance the performance of its recently created National Registry for Consultants and Firms (NRCF) engaged in management systems practice in Nigeria.
Inaugurating the committee in Abuja, Aboloma stated the benefits for setting up the unit as including to fulfil the mandate of the organization in ensuring quality service delivery in management systems implementation in Nigeria as provided in the SON Act No. 14 of 2015.
According to him, the unit had the responsibility to assess and register competent management systems practitioners in Nigeria, including auditors, training institutions, certification bodies and consulting firms.
The SON helmsman stated that the unit was to ensure that practitioners in management systems implementation were in compliance with international best practices in order to promote greater competitiveness of products and services from Nigeria, at the global market.