Intending importers and manufacturers of products in Nigeria can now heave a sigh of relief as the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has further demystified the steps involved in product registration, reports Ugo Aliogo
The need to further demystify the processes and procedures for product registration in Nigeria became inevitable, following the recognition by the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), of the huge sum of money that most Nigerian masses lose daily to fake and substandard products, especially the life threatening ones.
However, the Director General of SON, Mallam Farouk Salim in a recent workshop organised by the agency for Journalists with the theme, “Improved Synergy to Promote Standardization at the SON’s Laboratory complex, Ogba, Lagos, noted that simplifying the process and procedures of product registration would go a long way in helping to sanitize the system of substandard and fake products.
In his presentation, the Assistant Director/Head Product Registration SON, Joseph Ugbaja, explained the scope of product registration, its objectives, benefits to the importer and steps involved in the product registration.
According to Ugbaja ,product registration is “a scheme that involves registration of imported products only adding that the objectives are: To Ensure that every product imported into Nigeria is registered and issued a number and logo before they are sold in the Nigeria markets; To ensure that only good quality products are sold in the Nigeria markets; To ensure traceability of all products; To ensure that Nigeria is not a dumping ground for substandard products and to protect the consumers and ensure that they get value for their money.”
Benefits
On the benefits of product registration to the importer, the SON Director pointed out that it protects the importer from people faking his products, especially if the importer is the brand owner or sole distributor.
He stressed that the second benefit is that the organisation will easily discover other entities importing or selling the importer’s products without permission and take legal action against the offenders as the unique logo will make it difficult for the product to be faked.
“If one of the models of a given product has a consumer complaint issue, rather than put on hold all the models of the product, the model in question (using the logo and number) will be put on hold while investigation is ongoing,” Ugbaja said.
Steps
The right steps to follow while registering a product for certification with the standards body has been outlined to include; Application , Assessment of the Brands/Models, Issue Demand Note to importers, Payment to TSA (Service charge), Inspection/Sampling, Laboratory and Issuance of Certificate of Product Registration.
With regards to the documents required before registration of products the agency listed the following; CAC Registration, Trade Mark Certificate, Letter of Authority to distribute the products in Nigeria, Application Form, Laboratory Test Result and Evidence of payment (TSA receipt).
Duration
The duration of the registration processes, according to Ugbaja, is six weeks from payment to issuance of certificate, adding that importers do not have to go to SON Lekki office to make inquiries or register their products because there are desk offices in ASPAMDA, Alaba, Computer Village, Ikeja/Aluminium village, Dopemu in Lagos and in every state office of SON nationwide.
On the difference between Product Registration Certificate and Product Certificate, the agency explained that Product Certificate is associated with SONCAP Certificate, while Product Registration Certificate is issued after the completion of product registration processes.
According to the agency, it is important to note that successful importers are usually contacted by SON when the Certificate, valid for 12months, is ready.
Challenges
With regards to challenges encountered by the agency in the course of registration, Ugbaja noted that some importers are not willing to have their products tested because of fear of failure/seizure while a few other importers are not willing to have their products registered, as they want to evade any form of payment.
“As traceability remains one of the core objectives of product registration, some importers prefer to operate from hideouts and sell their products without registering them. Non-Renewal of product registration by clients whose registered products have expired,” he added.
Despite the effective service delivery, SON says it is not resting on its oars as the upgrade of its E-Product Registration portal for online registration is on-going while is constantly engaging the electronic and print media and other stakeholders while creating Public Enlightenment and Awareness.
Strategies
In furtherance to curbing substandard products in the market, SON has created various training centres across the country. In this regards, equipped its training centres with modern international standard gadgets for effective services. SON training services offer a wide range of training courses to the industrial sector, the consumers and its own staff.
According to the Director General, “To ensure international best practices are established, implemented and, Maintained in Nigerian set ups, STS provides Management Systems training: Courses in various category namely; Lead Auditors, Internal Auditors, Lead Implementers, and Transition.
“The Training and Certification Unit was established in 1994. Starting with the ISO 9000 series, the Training was separated from the Certification in 2003 due to expansion in the Management Systems available for Training and Certification. The Management Systems became a full Department By 2013 midwifed by Head of Training. The Training is about becoming an Institute due to the need to focus on a wider scale of Courses and collaborations under this present management.”
Training Services’ Impact
The SON document reveals that its training services have done a lot in sensitising the consumers, equipping SON staff with knowledge tools and prepare the industrial sector for present and future challenges.
Salim explained that with the planned expansion and transformation of the training unit into a training institute by this present management that SON Training Services will be able to provide training to more participants in more parts of the country, stressing that SON has wealth of experience to teach the world.
“We run several training programs concurrently, thereby achieving the goal of becoming a reference point for standards throughout the country. One of the core values of SON is media engagement. We want to let the members of the press here represented today know that we recognise them and value their works. We want to employ you to assist us in disseminating these capacity building opportunities available in SON training services to the relevant target audience,” Salim said.
