By Bimbola Oyesola
AGAINST the backdrop of the fatal road accident that claimed the lives of the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, James Ocholi, his wife Blessing and son, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has warned that dealers in fake tyres would henceforth be charged with murder.
The Acting Director General of SON, Dr. Paul Angya, while speaking at an engagement with tyre dealers in Lagos at the weekend said SON’s mandate is known to everybody who is aware of standardisation but as Acting Director General, he would enforce serious sanctions on those culpable. He stated that SON was going to play along with the Federal Government’s change mantra, which does not give room for corruption.
He noted that 8,986 accidents were recorded in 2015, while 4,100 were killed and 732 people died as a result of tyre bust. He urged the tyre dealers to cooperate with the organisation by putting an end to importation of sub-standard tyres into the country. “We are ready to eliminate importation of sub-standard products into Nigeria. Because of this, we have reached out to other government agencies to ensure that we work together and stop smugglers of fake products into the country,” he said.
He stated further: “Our Act empowered us to jail promoters of sub-standard products by up to 10 years and we will not relent to jail any culprit. If you have fake tyres in your shop, make sure you dispose of them in the next 24 hours, failing which our team will visit you and will charge you for murder.
“To eliminate corruption from SON, we are going to introduce e-payment, e-invoice and e-receipt to stamp out corruption from the system.”
Speaking on improving locally produced goods, Angya said the organisation’s vision was to get closer to the people so that their goods and farm products would be up to global standard.
“To ease our work and improve quality of goods and products in Nigeria, we are working to improve expansion of SON’s facilities across the country so that people in Sokoto will not travel to Maiduguri to test their products,” he said.