The establishment of the National Quality Council (NQC) to promote enhanced development, harmonisation and rationalisation of Nigeria’s Quality Infrastructure is part of measures put in place by the Federal Government to tackle and mitigate the constant rejection of Nigeria’s export products in the international market which has become an emergency.
The Chairman and Chief Executive of the NQC, Osita Aboloma who stated this in Abuja, posited that the various legs of the quality infrastructure, namely standards development, metrology, conformity assessment and accreditation require urgent harmonization and rationalization.
These, he said, would ensure cost effectiveness and efficiency in support of the acceptance of Nigeria’s export products around the world.
Responding to questions on the recent assertion by the Director-General of NAFDAC, Professor Mojisola Adeyeye, that 70 percent of Nigeria’s food exports are rejected in Europe and America, Aboloma said that sanitary and phyto-sanitary requirements are some of the key issues to be surmounted to avoid the constant rejects.
The SPS requirements, according to him, are quarantine and biosecurity measures applied to protect human, animal and plant life or health risks arising from the introduction, establishment and spread of pests, diseases as well as from the use of additives, toxins and contaminants in food and feed.
Aboloma alluded to a recent Vanguard Newspaper report of Nigerians shipping goods to Ghana for certification to enhance export value as being unacceptable, stressing that the solution lies in accelerated development, rationalization and harmonization of the Nation’s quality infrastructure for optimum value addition.
He stressed the need for greater synergy amongst organizations and institutions in the public and private sectors, hosting the National Quality Infrastructure as well as greater awareness creation for operators along the export value chain.
According to him, the National Quality Council was created to implement the letters and spirit of the approved Nigerian National Quality Policy (NNQP) document which provides for efficient and effective management of regulatory responsibilities to achieve protection of society and the environment as well as transparent and reliable state-regulatory systems, devoid of bureaucratic vagaries.
Others he said, include the provision of a supportive National Quality Infrastructure (NQI), which consists of Standards, Metrology, Accreditation and Conformity Assessment Services that must be acceptable globally to enhance the competitiveness of products and services made in Nigeria.
