Hope rises for Nigeria’s exports as SON labs get global accreditation

 

The efforts of the federal government towards economic diversification appear to be heading to the right direction following international accreditation awarded to Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) test laboratories recently. Now, following the development, local products tested, analysed and certified with the laboratories would be acceptable and competitive anywhere across the world.

At the presentation ceremony of the accredited laboratories in Lagos yesterday, SON Director General, Mallam Farouk Salim expressed delight that with the facilities in place, the nation’s export drive promises to be fruitful. While calling on Nigerians especially operators and manufacturers to patronise the facilities, he expressed hope that there would be drastic reduction of rejections of Nigeria export products. ‘‘what we have on ground are accredited laboratory facilities for testing, analyses and certifications of certain essential products such as electricals, chemicals as well as agricultural produce. In order to be acceptable and competitive, Nigeria’s products need to meet stipulated global standards. Locally made products need to be certified in this country before we move them to the international market. Apart from removing some of the technical barriers to trade, which kept Nigeria’s export products out of international market, SON has been taking bold steps to ensure that Made-In-Nigeria products and services meet acceptable international quality standards. Recall that in recent times, some Nigeria export products suffered rejections at the global market for reasons of poor quality. We want to change this narrative. That is why we are getting international accreditation and re-accreditation of our laboratories and building new ones.

The labs have been accredited after the successful completion of evaluation processes by the American Association of Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA) in accordance with the recognised international standards. ” The labs are: electrical lab performs tests on electrical cables, insulation and sheaths, the chemical tech and good”

In his words, “What it means for our market is that, most of our manufacturers you heard them saying that their products were rejected even by our local companies because their products are not certified, because they do not have laboratory certificate to say that they are up to standard, but now that excuse is out of the way and also because of the export potentials of our industries, with the certification it is easy for them to export anywhere in the world because an accredited laboratory means that whatever we say is good is good. It gives the nation credibility, it gives our manufacturers credibility, and it saves our foreign currency because they do not have to go to neighboring countries to get their products certified anymore, so it is a win-win situation for everybody.”