By Uzor Odigbo
The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has confiscated N600 million substandard imported tyres in Obafemi Owode area of Ogun State at the weekend.
SON’s Director-General, Mallam Farouk Salim, said that the importers were taking advantage of the vastness of the country to warehouse substandard products at different hideouts.
He assured however that the culprits would not escape the wrath of his agency.
“Six hundred-million-naira worth of substandard tyres were discovered at the warehouse and these were promptly confiscated by the agency,” he said.
Salim explained that the tyres, stuffed in 100 containers, passed through the ports unnoticed, stressing, “This again had underscored the need for the SON to be present at the nation’s points of entry.”
He said that before declaring a tyre substandard, it would have been tested in the laboratory and found short of the requirements of the NIS 252 2017 standards.
“If the tyres are used and expired, the tyres are substandard, if the tyres are stuffed, the tyres are substandard”, he said, adding, “Stuffing means putting a smaller tyre into bigger ones and another bigger one into the biggest one by way of dodging duties and shipping cost to make too much profits; but in the act of making too much profits, they do not look at the quality implication of these tyres”.
Salim said that being produced through a mechanical process, that the physical structures of tyres were readily affected once exposed to stuffing.
“Anybody buying a tyre should do physical examination and visual examination,” he advised.
He said that the seizure was to ensure that the tyres stuffed in over 100 containers, did not find their ways into the nation’s markets, as their integrity had been lost.
“This is a very dangerous situation because people’s lives are at stake and our roads are not safe because of something like this.
“We have no idea how these tyres got into this country. We are not at the ports and it did not come through us and they do not have papers with us that the goods have been cleared.
“We do not also have access to the port because if we were at the ports, there is no way we would allow about 100 containers; and you can imagine if another 15 warehouses around the country, we are looking at about 2000 containers slipping through unnoticed,’’ he said.
Salim pointed out that given the vast nature of the country, it would not be a surprise to find other such warehouses in the North.
“It is a very dangerous trend and this is why we are still emphasising that the best way to enforce is to be at the point of entry. This is why about 100 containers slipped through the ports and ended up in the warehouse,’’ he added.
‘’Our message to importers is that we are coming for unscrupulous importers and we are not ready for compromise; we will prosecute. There is no way we can salvage these tyres so we are going to destroy them,’’ he added.
‘‘We have arrested the manager of the warehouse, but the owner of the product is a foreigner and happens to be outside of the country and we are sure he would come to explain himself. And if he does not, we will just prosecute the manager and anybody involved in this property,’’ he said.