Why Most Exported Products Are Rejected - Odumodu

The Director-General of Standard Organisation of Nigeria, SON, has explained reasons why most export products are rejected at the point of destination.

Odumodu made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday.

In order to preserve products for export, Odumodu said Nigerians often add more chemicals than required and as a result, such products are rejected at the point of destination.

He said there is a need to educate exporters on standards and specifications.

He said the bid to promote non-oil export in the country cannot be encouraged by selling sub-standard commodities.

Odumodu said while Nigeria, like other countries is focusing on agro business to earn revenue, its main challenge in the exportation of produce is that exporters never follow the law on standardisation.

”Lots of Nigerians are now exporting agricultural products but one of the challenges we have seen is that most of our commodities are not easily accepted in Europe. The challenge we have is that people try not to do what the law says.

”Exporters send goods without testing them and once they are tested over there, if the goods do not comply with the standard, it will be destroyed or sent back to Nigeria.

”So such act gives the country bad image because it is negative news yet, it is one person who tries to smuggle the product into that country,’’ he lamented.

Odumodu said Nigeria must clearly define the process for exporting agricultural products and put sanctions in place for defaulters.

”To move forward, we need to create sanctions, there must be a clearly defined process for export of agricultural products.

”Once those processes are defined, then the onus will now be on us to ensure that before you send any procedure out of Nigeria, it must be tested and certified by an accredited lab. It doesn’t have to be owned by SON.

”There is no other agency or any lab that has that level of scope for agricultural products and we test something as complex as metal in food up to fungi contamination,’’ Odumodu said.

He said Nigeria is a member of CODEX Allimentarius Committee, a standardisation body affiliated to World Health Organisation, and responsible for determining standards for food products.

”However, every regional economic community also has a right to impose additional restrictions or increase specification,’’ he said.

Odumodu has said that Nigeria loses huge sums from the exportation of untested agricultural products.

Government must ensure that all the relevant agencies come together to have a standards and ensure that nothing actually leaves Nigeria without the knowledge of the agencies.

”The important thing is that all of us must agree that this must be done so that no commodity leaves Nigeria without the certificate of certification.

”Nigeria can achieve 100 per cent acceptance or 0 per cent rejection but we have to do what we have to do back home but we are not doing that,’’ Odumodu said.

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