NAN-H-45
SON
By Bosede Olufunmi
Kano, Nov. 2, 2017(NAN) Alhaji Yunusa Mohammed, Kano State Coordinator of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) says the organisation will upgrade its service delivery on quality assurance and standardisation in Kano State and Jigawa.
Mohammed made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kano on Thursday.
He said part of the mandate of SON was to ensure quality assurance and standardisation of products and services by making sure that people got the required quality of products that would be safe for use.
According to him, SON plans to increase the tempo of existing services, which include products certification through factory inspection and to conduct market survey.
He added that the organisation planned to carry out sensitisation workshop on import requirements, products registration, storage of goods, products recall, consumers’ complaints redress and others.
The coordinator said that the enforcement exercise conducted at Karaye Local Government Area of Kano State resulted in confiscation of 717 bags of sugar, while 552 bags and 277 cartons of pasta were sealed in a warehouse.
He noted that 165 bags of sugar were evacuated and taken to SON’s office.
Mohammed said imported sugar must be fortified with vitamin A as a mandatory policy of fortification, including vegetable oil and flour.
He said that surveillance report and other preliminary investigation from the area showed that the sugar stock in warehouse in that area was not fortified with vitamin A, “which is a gross violation of Nigeria’s Industrial Standards requirements.”
The state coordinator also said that colour was a function of impurities in sugar, adding that “pure sugar must have 45 ICUMSA (International Commission for Uniform Methods of Sugar Analysis) value.”
According to him, the lower the ICUMSA value, the purer the sugar is and most of the sugar imported into the country have high value more than 45 ICUMSA unit.
“Some have 100 and above and it has great health implications over time,” Mohammed said.
He advised the public to be careful and to examine products even before they buy. (NAN)
BO/AJA/HA
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Edited by Adeleye Ajayi/Hadiza Mohammed-Aliyu