Our problem with fake imported products – SON

Engineer Bede Obayi, is the Director of Monitoring and Compliance, Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON). In this interview with Sunday Vanguard, he reacted to the issues   raised at a recent town hall meeting on cargo handling charges and SON’s regular entry into the sea ports for cargo inspection.

The Federal Government gave a standing order, telling some agencies including SON to leave the ports. Today, importers are complaining about what they allege as illegal entry by SON’s officials into the ports, even when they are not invited by Customs for examination?

To start with, the statement illegal entry is erroneous.   How could you say an agency of government created by law with the mandate to perform its statutory functions is entering the ports illegally? In 2011, the Federal Government directed some agencies to stay outside the ports, not to be physically located in the ports, but be invited during inspection of products under their mandate. So, SON responded immediately by opening this office strategically located close to Apapa   port, Tincan Island port and other terminals to ensure effective response, to safeguard Nigerians from consuming fake and substandard products. It is a one-stop office where we handle Port inspections, SONCAP verification and enforcement, which is monitoring compliance in all issues relating to port inspections.
So, when someone talks about the importance of SON in the ports, you realise that SON must be there to protect Nigerians. Do you know that just one container of fake products can cause havoc in the whole country? It can claim so many lives and even wipe out a whole State.   Consider the havoc adulterated fuel can cause. Also, a container of fake goods can cause an outbreak of epidemic in the whole country. A typical example is that of Ebola.
Therefore, we need effective regulation to protect our economic environment and innocent Nigerians, which is what SON is doing. So, anyone who tells you that SON stops his cargo wrongly should show documents to prove it. We had cases where containers were declared as food items but the contents were substandard electrical cables. Sometimes substandard tyres are imported into the country, and you can see up to 10 tyres stocked in side one. Another example is the recent seizure of huge substandard tyres and arrest of importers involved.
What precisely is the mandate of SON and which agency should invite SON into the ports when its expertise is needed?
Our mandate is to ensure elaboration of industrial standards for goods made in Nigeria and products imported into the country, to monitor compliance of these products to the standards, but the major challenge facing SON is false declaration of goods.   Since the clearing agents realised that we see things coming into the country through the integrated information system, they will deliberately import SON’s regulated products and declare them like that of National Agency for Food, Drug, Administration and Control (NAFDAC ) to deceive people.   For instance, you see a container carrying SON’s controlled goods being declared as food items.
They will not do this at the point where NAFDAC can monitor it. They will declare one thing at the point of Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR) and a different thing at the process where the cargo is going to be released. They will connive and move the container before you know what is happening.   You see a situation where you open the single window information system and discover that all the products declared there are not the real contents.
The question now is, who is to invite SON when its expertise is needed in the port? Initially, we thought it would be linked to Customs that could give alert. But we started seeing numerous alerts coming in that containers at Tincan were ready for inspection, and we got there to see the Customs Area Controller, he said there was nothing like that. We discovered that there were system’s alerts from the head quarter of the organisation, which were not properly coordinated, to ensure that as you get to the port, at a particular time, products are there for examination.
Sometime we opened the system and saw over 1,000 alerts and none was effective. So, the alert system became ineffective and SON’s work was highly hampered. Nigerians cried out about all manners of substandard goods coming into the country, and asking what SON was doing to curtail influx of such items.   Therefore, SON had not been told not to carry out its mandate. When the alert system failed, we restrategised and partnered with Customs to get link into the window of Customs integrated information system, in order to see goods coming in, and to carry out inspection accordingly.
In September 2015, SON came on board to link up with the integrated information system.   Customs was already there and other agencies entered into the system, making it a single window for monitoring goods coming into the country. The code we are using is an international code from the Federal Government and not from SON. Even with this, SON is faced with a lot of challenges at the ports, for example, false declaration of goods mentioned earlier.
SONCAP was launched in 2006, about 11 years now. It shows that for over a decade, SONCAP has become very effective, and when you get it into the system, it is like a bill of lading that tells what is inside a container. Importers do not want to do honest declaration. So, they will falsely declare goods and package them into a container.
When they tell you SON is on the high way monitoring, it is when we get information that what they are carrying inside a container is substandard cables and not food items that we act. Often, we track the items but sometimes we don’t get all because they will remove the cargo in an hour you may not be there. How many staff does SON have to monitor all the roads and markets in Nigeria? The people criticising SON are those who ought to be blamed for not doing the right thing.
What is the way out?
The SON Act enacted in 2015 gives the agency the power to prosecute economic saboteurs. Therefore, we will not hesitate to prosecute those guilty of importing fake and substandard products into Nigeria, to the detriment of consumers and the nation’s economy. Today, we have many cases still pending in court and we must follow them to a logical conclusion.