The Nigeria Customs Service says it is ready to partner with the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) to curb the influx of substandard goods.
The Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ibrahim (rtd), told Channels Television on Saturday that the collaboration would enable the agencies achieve the Federal Government’s mandate of reducing to a bearable minimum the increasing inflow of such goods.
“We are here today to establish that synergy and agree that henceforth we will be working hand-in-hand to improve the system,” Col. Ibrahim said during a meeting with representatives of SON.
The Director General of SON, Joseph Odumodu, requested that the organisation should be allowed to be part of the imported goods’ extermination process to ensure proper check of goods.
“Sometimes containers may come with a paper that says it is ‘A’ but what is inside may be ‘B’. We do not need to see everything, but there are some products that we call life endangering products, like bulbs, electronics, tyres, children’s toys and others and we will like to have a good look at these products,” Mr Odumodu said.
He stressed that although the supervision may not require a 100 per cent involvement of SON, but a proper extermination will ensure that substandard goods do not come into Nigeria.
According to statistics, over 60 per cent of goods imported into Nigeria are fake and this has become an area of concern for the government.