Blames fire incidents on importation of fake cable
By Steve Agbota
The Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) on Thursday destroyed substandard electricity cables, stuffed new tyres and engine oil imported into the country.
Speaking to newsmen at the destruction site, the Director-General, SON, Mallam Salim Farouk, who lamented the importation of substandard products by Nigerian importers with scarce foreign exchange, said the destroyed products worth several billions of naira.
However, he said importation of substandard products into the country are endangered to the society and properties, hence, there is a need to destroy them.
He said the reason why SON come to its warehouse on a regular basis to destroy products is that it has been confiscated and some other products the court has given the organisation permission to destroy.
However, he lamented that substandard products are economy sabotage to the people, Nigeria and individuals who innocently buy them, adding that the people bringing in these products are causing economic loss to the country and also cause a lot of lives and properties.
He affirmed that the Nigerian cable industry is one of the most successful industries in the country, adding that due to the success recorded in the nation’s cable industry, people are now copying them and one bad thing about the copying is that they copied badly.
According to him, all Nigerian based cable industries know that people are copying their products and the cable manufacturers association keeps an eye on these fake manufacturers and reports the fake manufacturers to SON.
“And we make sure, we monitor them because it is affecting our economy especially with our government policy on a home grown economy and we have to make sure the home grown economy succeeds, and is protected,” he added.
He said that a lot of fire incidents in the country that burnt down houses are caused by fake electrical cables because 100 per cent of them are not made in Nigeria.
On the tyres, he said the tyres look new but some of them are not new tyres that have been reprocessed and make it look like new.
“And some of them are actually new tyres but unfortunately when the importers were bringing them in, they stuffed other tyres in them. And because they lose their integrity, the wires inside the tyres would be broken. So the tyres will blow up if you are using them that is the reason we are destroying them. The whole idea of this destruction is because all these tyres your seeing are dangerous to the society,” he explained.
He said because these life threatening products, SON went to the National Assembly to review its Act and they have passed the law that anyone caught bringing these selling life-threatening items would be jailed immediately when they are caught.