By Franklin Alli

Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) said powerful individuals, companies and trade associations were making it difficult for both organisations to effectively carry out their jobs of enforcing compliance to standards and protecting consumers.

In separate presentations tagged, “Standards, Prospects and Challenges; and challenges of enforcement, making the consumer king in a difficult environment,” director general of both organizations, Joseph Odumodu and Dupe Atoki said: “We are operating in a very difficult environment where the system doesn’t allow you to take action on infringements.”

SON DG said: “The organisation does not write standards; it is based on consensus. What we do is we monitor compliance, for example, the new cement standard was prescribed by 25 Technical Committee and it was approved by SON.”

He noted that in spite of the gains of standards to the society (homes, companies and governments) the agency is constrained in enforcing them.

“If I seize substandard products such as tyres and cables, I go to court to get judgment before I can destroy them; then there is vast informal markets- Alaba International, Auto spare parts and machinery dealers Association, ASPAMDA; Computer village, etc, are very difficult to regulate,” said Odumodu.

He identified other challenges to include ‘Poor consumer awareness about the hazards of consuming fake products, and the economy, ineffective ports and border control as well as poor implementation of standards by manufacturers.”

Despite these challenges, he said the volume of substandard products circulating in the economy had dropped from 85 percent to 45 percent.

He believes that by the time the SON new Bill at the National Assembly is passed into law, it will give the agency prosecutoral power, to arrest and prosecurte offenders.

In her own submission, Dupe Atoki, DG CPC, noted “Without consumers patronage, businesses are dead, yet, CPC is faced with the challenges of making Nigerian consumer king.

“We get pressure from powerful individuals, companies and trade associations when we try to do our jobs. Some of them had even threatened me, saying ‘We can get somebody from the top to move you out of there.”

Atoki said that the political might of the federal government is needed to surmount the activities of these powerful individuals and companies if consumers are to be enthroned truthfully as king.

“Since I took over, I have improved the rate of consumers complaint by 65 percent from various sectors.”