Mallam Farouk Salim, director general of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), has pledged that the agency will step up its efforts to ensure that Nigerian-made goods can compete successfully on global markets.
Salim made this statement at a SON training for MSMEs and MANCAP-certified products exhibition in Lagos, where he emphasised the importance of SON’s long-standing capacity-building programmes for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
He explained that the certification processes and discounts given to micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) were put in place to guarantee that the goods and services provided were up to par with industry standards and could hold their own against worldwide competitors.
During the three-day exhibition, one of the events commemorating SON’s 50th anniversary, Dr Richard Adewunmi, SON’s Director of Marketing, represented Salim.
To avoid product rejection on international markets, he claimed that SON was also offering a reliable testing environment for locally manufactured items.
“This we are doing by equipping our engineering laboratories, the National Metrology Institute in Enugu, the leather and textile laboratories, foods, chemical and electrical laboratories in Ogba Lagos,” Farouk stated.
Over 120 companies that had passed SON’s accreditation standards were present at the first show.
To speed up service delivery to industries and MSMEs, Salim said the agency was establishing new regional offices, renovating old office buildings, and working closely with state governments to provide lands for the construction of offices and laboratories.
“We recently commissioned the Kano regional training facility to provide training services for our stakeholders in the North-West and would be commissioning in North-East regional office complex in Bauchi State in a few days,” he said.
Salim thanked everyone who has ever worked for SON, both past and present, for their contributions to Nigeria. He explained how the organisation came to be through a look back at its legal origins in the Standards Organisation of Nigeria cap 412 of the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Act No. 56 of December 1971.
