Nigeria’s standards agency, SON, impresses federal legislators over budget application

The Nigerian House of Representatives committee on industry has scored the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) high on effective implementation of budgetary provisions on its near completed laboratory complex at Ogba, Ikeja, Lagos.

Abubakar Moriki, the committee chairman, who led an eight-man delegation to the facility, credited Osita Aboloma, SON’s director general, for attaining 95 per cent completion of the project, while he urged him not to centralise all laboratory equipment in one center but to spread the equipment across all laboratories in all the regions of the country..

Moriki said the inspection was necessary to ascertain the depth of implementation of 2017 budget, in preparation for the passing of the 2018 appropriation bill.

The chairman who commended the spate of construction and equipping, said the observation of the laboratory complex will forge basis for the provision of amenities to the facility to jump start operation.

Touring the four-storey complex compassing refrigerating testing chamber, environmental, food microbiology, heavy metals, herbicide, pesticide, residue testing, protein, Fat, Alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, Tobacco, additives, White petroleum, water benzene, Polymer and condom, Electrical accessories testing laboratories and Food data processing unit among others, Moriki said full operation should begin by March.

He said: “Towards the tail end of 2016, we were here and this project was about 95 per cent completed, even though the equipment were not installed and positioned in their respective offices , but now that we are in 2018 and in the process of considering the appropriation for 2018 for SON, it is necessary to come and visit the facility and see other places where they are conducting some construction, procurement of laboratory equipment and other activities in order to meet the target of the completion of the project.

“ We have gone round to see all the laboratories, equipment being supplied and they are getting prepared to install them and also currently commissioning them and this facility would also conduct capacity building for SON staff who are going to use the equipment.”

He urged the DG to ensure strategic distribution of the testing equipment across regional laboratories to avoid concentration in a locale.

“We should be looking forward to seeing many of these testing equipment separated all over, not necessarily concentrated in one location. It is a service you provide to many of the cement companies,” he said.