NAN-H-57SON
By Usman Aliyu
Offa (Kwara), Nov. 20, 2017 (NAN) The Olofa of Offa in Kwara, Oba Muftau Gbadamosi, has urged the Standards Organisations of Nigeria (SON) to intensify efforts containing importation of substandard goods into the country.
Gbadamosi made the call when a delegation from SON paid him a courtesy on Monday in Offa.
He noted that a significant percentage of goods imported into the country are substandard and blamed the development on the near absence of manufacturing in the country.
He observed that poor quality imported products which sell at lower prices made it difficult for locally products goods to compete, due to their high cost.
“When you manufacture in Nigeria and you want to follow the standards, it becomes too expensive.
“That is why local manufacturers cannot thrive; they will not be able to compete with them.
“Gone are days when imported goods were the best; nowadays our products here are the best because we are afraid to kill our brothers.
“When they are bringing in rubber rice, what else can they not do,?” he asked.
The traditional ruler explained that as a farmer, he knew farmers were suffering because they could not get effective insecticides, pesticides and agrochemicals for their farms.
He pledged to assist SON in its Mandatory Certification Assessment Programme (MANCAP) inspection in the town.
Earlier, the state Coordinator of SON, Mr Sunday Yashim, said the team was in Offa to intimate him of the activities of the organisation.
Yashim sought the assistance of the monarch in providing a Liason Office for the organisation to bridge the stress of Offa people going to Ilorin to lodge complaints.
He also appealed to the monarch in the area of accommodation for SON staff deployed for factory inspections in the town on quarterly basis.
He said that SON on Thursday embarked on a campaign against substandard goods to some secondary schools in the area, as a way of inculcating the quest for quality in the young ones. (NAN)
AUO/OIF/NKO
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Edited by Ifeyinwa Okonkwo/Nkechi Okoronkwo