Firm reassures commitment to verification of safe products in Nigeria 

Blessing Anuka

An international firm and a leading company that provides testing, inspection and certification services in Nigeria, COTECNA, has reassured it’s commitment in the verification and conformity of imported goods and issuance of certificates in the country.

Ms Lena Sodergren, the Group Vice President, COTECNA Inspections S.A based in Geneva, Switzerland gave the assurance, during a chat with Journalists in Port Harcourt.

Sodergren stated that COTECNA operates on testing, inspection, certification of commodities, such as Agric products, Food Safety, Minerals and any kind of consumable coming in and out of countries.

Recall that on February,13, 2013, COTECNA, one of the world’s leading international testing inspection and certification companies was appointed by the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) to join and assist in it’s conformity assessment programme called SONCAP.

SONCAP programme was introduced by the Federal Government of Nigeria to address the concern of substandard products entering the country.

COTECNA carries out the verification of conformity of imported goods and issues certificates of conformity in the country of origin.

According to Sodergren, COTECNA has been privileged to work with SON for almost 10 years where it intervene globally for products been imported into Nigeria.

Sodergren stated that the company would continue to assist; support traders and SON to control compliance in Nigerian standard from countries like China, Dubai, India, Europe and anywhere in the world coming into Nigeria with compliance standard.

“We are kind of a third party, sub contracted services for the global certification services for Nigeria, and we are an Accredited Inspection Company, a part of the team to achieve conformity in the Nigerian standard.

“We are normally contacted by the traders themselves who knows that they have to come to us, but we could always do awareness campaign in the countries of exports such as China and Dubai, the traders will contact us and they will submit their documentation and submit their goods for our inspection.

“So we will proceed with our laboratory testing that is needed, once we compare those products and the test results to the Nigerian standard we can say it’s OK and then issue certificates to the traders to ship their goods. The certificate is then valid for Customs clearance as required here in Nigeria”, Sodergren stated.