Hyacinth Chinweuba
Local Manufacturers have appealed to the Standard Organisation of (SON) to help stop products faking by unknown persons as the practice is killing their investment.
Among the manufacturers that laid the complaint include Cummins West Africa Ltd which is the franchise holders for a fleet of automobile filters.
The company, it was gathered, found out that a lot of its products, including oil and fuel filters, have been adulterated.
The difference between the original ones and the fake ones is that the latter will not check the impurity, a development that can lead to leakage of oil or fuel.
If this occurs, the vehicles stand a lot of risk of either engine knock or fire in the case of leaking filter which could ignite any object or bad exhaust pipe while on motion.
SON’s Head of Inspection and Compliance, Mr Bede Obayi, told ORIENTAL NEWS NIGERIA that the organization was determined to ensure that those involved in faking genuine products are put out of business and brought to justice.
Describing the issue as a recurring decimal in the market, he said it was bad for people to go overseas to fake such products and smuggle them into the country without caring about the colossal damage done to the economy.
Obayi disclosed that SON will work with market unions to ensure that it sanitises the system, adding that SON would be raiding markets in search of such products.
He advised traders to beware of such adulterated products, warning that those caught will face the wrath of the law.
It would be recalled that SON had in July last year sealed a warehouse with over N2 billion sub-standard automobile products.
The warehouse, located at Orile, Lagos, had products imported from China, repackaged and branded with a known manufacturer’s brand.
According to SON, the products, 194 containers with 82 inferior motorcycle spare parts, were brought in between June 2014 and June 2015.