Franklin Alli reviews compliance to the deadline issued by Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) to cement manufacturers in the country and report that the 23 cement companies operating across the country are at the risk of having their products withdrawn from the market if they are unable to meet the 60-day ultimatum on product labelling and traceability requirements by the agency.

The deadline was issued two weeks ago and would expire mid-September.

At the meeting which was attended by Dangote Cement, Lafarge Nigeria, Unicem, Ibeto Cement, Ashaka Cement and Sokoto Cement, etc, SON DG, Joseph Odumodu,mandated the manufacturers to print on their cement bags the manufacturing and expiry dates, product application information as well as the batch numbers of the products.

He said that the move is to enhance traceability in case of product failures.

The SON boss was shocked that with the exception of Lafarge which claimed to have batch numbers on its products, other cement manufacturers confessed their products neither have batch number nor expiry date.

Said Odumodu: “What I have invited you were basically to seek your collaboration on the things we want to embark on. The Federal government is very concerned about the fact that there is so much noise that we have made so far but it has not led to the reduction of collapse building.

“The second point is to draw your attention to the fact that SON is not interested in killing any company or any industry.   I believe that we can celebrate the cement industry in Nigeria. We are celebrating them and we can celebrate them even further in ensuring that the best practices are adopted in getting our products to consumers.

“Within the next two months all cement bags that are in Nigeria must be compliant with certain basic information and the additional information will be to have a batch number, manufacturing date and expiry or Use by date.

“What I mean is that in the next two months, every cement bag we see without batch number, manufacturing and expiry date will be removed from the market. It is all about acting for the best interest of this country.”

Manufacturers’ reaction

Devakumar Edwin, Group Managing Director/ CEO Dangote Cement Plc, responded, “We thank you for calling us to this meeting and telling us what you have in mind for implementation. You are the implementing agency and we respect authority so we agreed with all the proposals you have brought up and we believe we can work out the modalities on how we are going to implement the resolutions to further move the industry forward.   I want to make our own point of view clear on the subject.     For us we are willing to abide by whatever SON is proposing. We at Dangote can meet the deadline but we should discuss and agree on the date of implementation.”

However, Olivier Lenoir, Managing Director UNICem added, “For sure we want to collaborate with you as we did on certification. This initiative will boost health and safety and also we are very concerned as a stakeholder in the cement industry.   For me one month is too short. Before we import the machine from the manufacturer and install them, Six months should be enough for us to meet the requirements.”

Lanre Opakunle, General Manager Industrial/ Performance, Lafarge Nigeria, commented, “We have come here as responsible corporate citizens to be part of this meeting; when you said you need a date on the cement bags, you need equipment to do it; this equipment is not manufactured in Nigeria and if you want to do it, you have to overhaul the plants. You have to look at the source of the machine, you have to import the machine and all those things take time.

But since it is an issue that affects the general public, we are more than ready to contribute our experience and our knowledge and that is why we are here. We are more than ready to collaborate with SON, with other cement manufacturers and professional bodies so that we find the solution to building collapse in Nigeria.”

Aminu Bashir, Assistant Director Production, Sokoto Cement, also said, “We are ready for compliance with the standards. But on this issue of removing non-conforming cement bags, it is not going to be possible for us because we need some kind of equipment that we have to incorporate into the plant system to be able to stamp the date of manufacture / Best Before date. One month is not entirely possible for us to comply with; that is the area we want SON to look at- the technicality of it and extend the deadline. One month is not possible for us. We have large stocks of bags and if we are going to stamp dates we need enough time to incorporate it into our system to be able to have expiration date on our cement.”

Furthermore, Eze Echesi, Executive Director Group Operations Ibeto Cement, stated, “We at Ibeto Cement agree to collaborate with SON to achieve public safety in Nigeria. I want to express some concerns on the timing; there will be a need to actually look at the implications of the timing, just as my colleagues have pointed out; to stamp expiry dates on the bags is highly technical. Most of the plants have been established without considerations for this most especially in Nigeria and you need to incorporate the designs on the plants. So the issue here is an appeal to SON to take into account the changes that we need to do on the plants’ operation will take more than one month.”