SON emphasizes need for manufacturers to certify products

The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has stepped up its awareness campaign to the manufacturers on the importance of getting their products certified.

Kwara Coordinator of SON Mrs. Esther Okon revealed this on Wednesday in Ilorin, after the presentation of a certificate of Mandatory Conformity Assessment Programme (MANCAP) to De Johnson Nigeria Ltd.

According to her, only the Nigerian products that have the MANCAP logo are safe for consumption.

Okon said that the MANCAP certificate was only given to companies that complied with the stated standards for products. She noted that the certificate could be withdrawn if the manufacturers were found defaulting in their production processes.

“This is proof of conformity to the Nigerian industrial standards requirement. This certificate is only given to those companies that comply with all that is stated in the standards for a particular product at that point that the certificate is issued.

“This quarter alone, we have about 12 certificates to be issued, meaning that a lot of manufacturers in Kwara are ready to cooperate with us to ensure Nigerians get value for their money,” she said.

“We try to carry out a lot of awareness; we also carry out training. We want all Nigerian products to have MANCAP certificate, to have the logo on them. When these products are certified they can be sold in Nigeria and even accepted abroad,” she said.

Okon promised to intensify monitoring so that the manufacturers would keep doing what they were doing before being issued the certificates.

“At any point, we discover that such manufacturers start defaulting, the certificates are immediately withdrawn because it means buyers no more get value for their money. We are against the Nigerian market getting populated with substandard products,” she said.

She also urged consumers to always look out for SON logo and report any product that had no such logo to the office for appropriate action.