By Charles Okonji
As part of efforts geared towards halting increasing trend of building collapse in the country, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has disclosed that the Agency has created standards for the block industry.
The Director General of SON, Mallam Farouk Salim made this disclosure at the General Sensitisation/Training for MSMEs on Product Competitiveness Driving Home-Grown Economy via Standardisation held in Lagos on Tuesday.
The SON DG expressed that with the new standards created, the block industry would be monitored, and constantly tested by the Agency to make sure they pass conformity test.
He said, recent research showed that the country has about 40 millions of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), adding that if each of these MSMEs and SMEs employ just three workers alone, a total of about 180 million jobs would be provided.
The SON boss further added that if the country can provide 180 million jobs, most of the begging in our streets and banditry plaguing the country would have reduced to the barest level.
He stressed that many economically developed countries of today like China, Taiwan, Japan and many others in the 50s to the early 70s, were not where they are today, adding that most of us saw their products as substandard, but today have developed their products to become globally competitive.
“In the 60s and the 70s, we had Ijebu products, Aba products, Taiwan products, China products, Indian products that many of us were saying were substandard.
“With hardwork and collaboration today China is number two economy in the world. Most of us here in this hall have one 1Phone or the others. Most of them are produced in China,” he maintained.
The event was graced by participants from many MSMEs and SMEs associations, such as block makers association, National Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI), National Association of Women Industrialists, Association of Women Businesses, Association of Small Business Owners and many others.
The SON CEO promised to collaborate with the MSMEs stakeholders who requested for “MSMEs hub” to assist the MSMEs to produce goods that will be accepted globally.
Salim lamented that the inability of our farmers to asked for the global standards led to the rejection of yams that were exported some years ago, adding that they were rejected due to poor packaging and non-compliance.
He promised that his agency was prepared to work with the MSMEs to enhanced standardization and grow their businesses.
Salim urged the participants to adhere to standards set by the agency to enable the country benefit from African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), as the products from the entire continent are free to move to every country.
“As we are today, any producer that fails to embrace product competitiveness, his or her products will not grow beyond the local market.
“Our Naira will continue to fall if we continue to import and fail to export our products. It is left to us to buy the products produce in Nigeria with our Naira, than exchanging our Naira with huge dollars just for us to import products our MSMEs and SMEs can produce here locally,” he steered.
