Consumers should report suspected fake products to nearest SON office — DG, Salim Farouk
Having worked with the Nasarawa Hospital, Kano as Hospital Pharmacist; worked with Glaxo Pharmaceuticals, Lagos as Medical Representative; worked at Missouri and Illinois in the United States of America (USA) as a Clinical Pharmacist, Staff Pharmacist and Allergy Specialist, Consultant Partner, Consultant Pharmacist, and lastly as Clinical Pharmacist with Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis, the USA; a member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, Pharmacist Council of Nigeria, the Missouri Pharmacy Board in the USA and; a former National President, Pharmaceutical Association of Nigerian Students, among others, the current Director General, Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Mallam Salim Farouk in this press interview in his office with Abba – Eku Onyeka recently, advises consumers to report any products suspected to be bad to SON’s nearest office, even as he enjoins manufacturers to maintain standards always. Excerpts:
As the Director General (DG) and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), can you briefly enumerate the functions of the agency under your watch?
The functions of SON are among others, to set standards of products; enforce standards; do management trainings for individuals and we have metrology, which is measurement. We make sure that we calibrate our measurements and make sure that products meet standards when we measure them.
Can you tell us the latest development in the Agency?
The latest development in the organisation is that we are reaching out to our stakeholders, trying to convince them on the essence of maintenance of standards, the usefulness of it for their business and the individuals in the markets. We are building facilities around the country, to make sure that we have efficient access to the individuals in the market, because it will make the Agency’s services to the people easy.
Though we have an Agency in the country whose duty it is to ensure standardisation of products, but when you go to Nigerian markets, you find out that substandard goods outnumber their standard counterparts. What is SON doing to reduce the illegalities to the barest minimum?
We are doing a lot of things: we are doing investigations in the markets, we go and do research; we buy products; look at them and check them in our labs and if the products are substandard ones, we try to track down who brought those products into the market and prosecute them. Also, we are trying to improve our surveillance in the ports, because right now, we have limited access to the port facilities and as you know, most foreign products that come into the country, come through the ports. So we are working on it. We have different units of enforcement, going around the country. We have informants in all the markets; those who let us know, when substandard materials are brought into the markets. We also have industries; sometimes, local manufacturers here in Nigeria who receive their products, fake them and infiltrate them into the markets. Our informants would let us know. We track them down, catch the culprits, take them to the police and prosecute them. We have got a few of people convicted for forgery already.
Doesn’t the DG think that, the right place to be going by the Agency’s staffers for the performance of their duties is in the seaports, airports, boarders, importers and manufacturers, instead of going to the open markets to catch innocent traders? Don’t you think that if SON is able to stop the substandard goods right from their sources, they won’t be circulated into the markets?
I don’t think that we catch any innocent trader. If a trader is selling goods he knows that are substandard ones, he isn’t innocent. And the people manufacturing them aren’t innocent either. Some of these goods aren’t locally manufactured, they are imported and these same traders are the ones going to China and other parts of the world to import the substandard products and bring them into the country. So what we are doing is to make sure that these products coming into the country, we minimize them by being at the ports and checking them and catching them before they bring them in. In some occasions, if they were able to smuggle the products into the country, if we catch them in their warehouses, we seal the warehouses, confiscate the substandard products and destroy them. We have destroyed a lot of substandard products around the country already.
Apart from Nigerian cables known for meeting up with standards, most cables that come into the country are not something to talk about with regard to standards and this has been causing the burning down of many houses in this country. Due to the seriousness of the problems, don’t you think that SON should collaborate with officers and men of Nigerian Customs Services to curb this to the barest minimum?
I want to let you know that our cooperation with the Customs is very high, fruitful and helpful. This country is very big. This country has so many borders and many areas where, even the Customs can’t hundred percent police all the borders. So those who come into the country, when we catch them, we prosecute the individuals. We don’t only go to the market, we do a lot of things. We, among others, catch them at the entry points.
We hear about the people you catch and never heard the end of it. Can you in details react to this?
We have prosecuted many and some of them are in jail now. Some of them would agree, give up their products; we then fine them and destroy their products. We have destroyed so many bad products in Enugu, Kano, Lagos, Katsina and other places, about last two weeks ago. We do that in a regular basis.
Your agency is expected to be creating awareness about the dangers of bad products in circulation. Have you been doing that?
We are doing sensitization to that effect. Our public relations department does that through the radios and televisions. We have individual sensitization, where we have our employees going to various places, from market places to facilities to educate people on the dangers of bad products and the essence of avoiding them and the ones to choose. Most television stations have our programs where people are educated on the dangers of bad products.
Can you speak on the Agency’s hindrances in carrying out its duties?
The hindrances are that our country is too big and the products coming into the country, it is difficult for me to send my people to Alaba market in Lagos or in Nnewi market, because these markets are very big and we don’t have enough security to even protect our people who go into those markets to enforce the law. So we have been cooperating with the market associations. In some occasions, they help us and protect us in the markets. But the most important thing is to get the products at the ports. And if majority of the products imported into this count comes through the ports; and we have limited access into the port, like I said earlier on, that we are working toward improving on the access to enable us catch most of the people who are bringing those bad products into the country. You have to understand that hundreds and thousands of containers come into this country on daily basis and it is difficult to track down every one of them without physically inspecting them. Physical inspection is very hard and it slows a lot of business down.
Mallam Salim Farouk, what would be your advice to the traders and the consumers with regard to bad products?
The consumers, sometimes they should know that the cheapest product isn’t the best product. So they should pay attention in the market when they are buying products. Also when they buy a product suspected to be substandard one, they should take it to the nearest SON’s office and lay a complain. A lot of our people, when such things happen, they just leave it like that and go away. So I am advising consumers to report, complain, because it will help us prosecute the individual who engaged in the selling of bad products. We are also encouraging the manufacturers to maintain standards, because with good and quality products, not only within Nigeria, now in Africa, they should be able to get their products in the markets and people will appreciate them.
Due to important roles being played in curbing circulation of bad products in the country, can you speak on funding?
Everybody is complaining about funding. We are trying our best with the limited fund we have. The money is limited and our charges are limited too. So we must make do with what we have in order to make sure that we use what we have efficiently.
