Standards Organisation of Nigeria
For uniformity and also to ensure seamless trade within West African states, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), and Nigerian Energy Support Programme (NESP), have partnered to harmonise standards for air conditioners and refrigerators
Indeed, both agencies expressed the need for uniform standards to address technical barriers to trade in the continent, saying that a generally acceptable standard would go a long way to boost intra-African trade.
The Director-General, SON, Osita Aboloma, represented by the Director, Corporate Offices, Electronic Department, Mr. Richard Adewunmi, at technical meeting in Lagos, said the revised standard would set the minimum requirements for energy performance standards of power consuming appliances in all the member nations of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
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According to him, acceptable standards are one of the ways to checkmate the influx of substandard goods, stressing that the certificate issued by the Technical Harmonisation Committee will be acceptable anywhere.
“If you leave Nigeria to other countries in West Africa, they will demand that you comply with their own national standards, but ECOWAS in its wisdom, as directed by its Heads of States, started the Eco Stamp five years ago.
We are picking some electro-technical standards and harmonising them to boost intra-African trade, and these would also stand as some critical standards for products going in and out of the market,” he said.
A representative of NESP, Ene Marcham, said there is a need to come up with a message that gets to end users, manufacturers and importers of air conditioners and refrigerators, maintaining that if the message is passed across in the right way, there would be a high level of sustainability in the long run.
The Chairman, Nigeria National Committee, Ayodele Afolabi, said with the move, Nigeria would be achieving a regional standard that will be adapted in a local market, and from the trade point of view; products from Nigeria can easily be marketed outside the shores of the country.
The Vice President, Nigeria Society of Engineers (NSE), Tadil Gadari, said the NSE is at the forefront of supporting the creation and adoption of the nation’s standards to make sure that energy is efficiently used all around the country.
Recall that SON recently harmonised the standards for honey to boost its production and marketability, maintaining that honey producers must adhere strictly to standards in a bid to meet expectations of consumers at the global market, while also producing quality products for the domestic market.
Source: G Business
