The Standard Organisation of Nigeria, SON, on Monday destroyed cooking gas cylinders and tyres estimated at N300m.
The Director-General, Farouk Salim, who supervised the destruction at the SON warehouse in Lagos, said the tyres and cylinders kept in seven containers, were substandard and unable to withstand extremely hot temperatures.
Salim explained that about 5,000 substandard tyres were stuffed into each other and had been collected by the agency overtime.
According to him, the destruction was being carried with the approval of the court.
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He said, “We are looking at between N200 and N300m worth of goods to be destroyed. We just started destroying them now and hopefully, they should be done before the end of the day, inclusive of cylinders and tyres.
“Every tyre is stuffed with five tyres. So, if a container takes 1,000 tyres then what they are putting there are 5,000 tyres in one container.”
He added, “The cylinder is from multiple parties. We do not destroy anything without permission from the guilty party or the court. Essentially, this was just a combination of all the cases we did and we are destroying them at the same time to make it more efficient.
Salim, however, wished they could be sent back to where the goods were imported. He noted that the destruction of the goods will help safeguard society from unsafe products.
He said, “They are being destroyed because some of them are contraband outright while some other cylinders are new but they are below the standard which means they would most likely explode if there is a high temperature in the country.
“It is just dangerous for the community. I wish there is a way we can send it back to where it is coming from. These substandard cylinders will explode and kill people because there are incidents of things like that happening right now.
“The new tires were stuffed. Stuffed means you have enough tires to put in five containers, you want to save money in containers and you put five tires into each other in one container. Unfortunately, when you do that, the integrity of the client is compromised.”
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Salim called for more security of the warehouse as individuals had made their way into the place to steal substandard cables confiscated from manufacturers awaiting destruction.
Salim stated that the agency was working with port authorities in combating substandard goods entering the country.
He also said the agency was increasing its surveillance of imported goods with the signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement.
