Standard Organisation of Nigeria has certified Dangote Cement okay in the Mandatory Conformity Assessment Programme, a development the agency said has stood out the company among its competitors in the industry.
Director-General, SON, Osita Aboloma, who made this disclosure also said that a new revised standard for cement production in Nigeria had been released.
The SON DG, who was represented by the agency’s Director of Standard Development, Mrs. Chinyere Egwuonwu, stated these during a partnership facility tour of the Dangote Cement Plant, Obajana, Kogi State, by top officials of the organisation from the northern parts of the country.
He noted that the new certification was an attestation to the Dangote Cement Plc’s quality products and its capacity to conduct in-process and in-house tests on its raw materials and finished products, in conformity with relevant national standards.
“Through our conformity assessment activities, we have always visited your plants on routine quarterly factory inspections to ensure compliance of your products to relevant national standards. The outcome of these activities is the certification of your products to the Mandatory Conformity Assessment Programme,” he said.
The SON boss further disclosed that the revised standard for cement NIS 444-1:2018 had been approved by the Standard Council of Nigeria and was ready for implementation.
Aboloma commended Dangote Cement for its active participation, especially in the area of standard development, saying SON appreciated the company’s effort and would be ready to partner and collaborate with the company’s management.
He promised that the organisation would continue to collaborate and provide the required support with Dangote Cement, other private sector operators and stakeholders to ensure availability of the relevant standards for both raw materials and finished products.
In his remarks, the Group Managing Director, Dangote Cement, Engr. Joseph Makoju, said the company had never taken the issue of standard with levity and that it was the reason it didn’t limit itself to the set standards but usually exceeded them, both in quality of its products and environmental friendliness of its plants operations.
He added that standard could not be compromised if products from Nigeria were to compete favourably with foreign ones, noting that it was for the reason of high standard that Dangote Cement had been a leader in all the countries where it is sold.
The GMD explained that its partnership with the SON as the regulating agency was born out of the quest of the former to keep to standard and that the organisation had invested heavily in machineries that ensured that the products quality standard was second
to none.
He explained that the decision of the company to take the lead in the backward integration policy of the Federal Government had paid off and that it was for the role of Dangote Cement that Nigeria was now self-sufficient in cement production and
consumption.
Makoju advocated a replication of the policy in other sectors of the Nigerian economy, “because over reliance on oil has not helped the nation’s economy.”
