Sam Ikeotuonye
Lagos — The Galvanised Iron and Steel Manufacturers’ Association, GISMA, has charged the Federal Government to tackle the many challenges facing steeling manufacturing in the country.
The association made the charge in a statement in Abuja, complaining specifically about the failure of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria and other government agencies in curbing the importation of substandard galvanised roofing sheets into the country.
The association, in the statement, issued the government a 30-day ultimatum to address the challenges confronting steel manufacturing and added that if the government is unable to address the challenges within the period, its members might be forced to offload sack about 20,000 people currently engaged by them.
It urged SON to seriously tackle importers of substandard galvanised roofing sheets in compliance with the Federal Government’s Industrial Roadmap Revolution of the government.
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The spokesman of the association, Lateef Bello, said in the statement: “We are aware that the Standard Organisation of Nigeria held a press conference last week and unveiled its successful seizure of substandard aluminium sheets worth over N200 million from various aluminium companies in Uyo.
“SON in its address further confirmed that the minimum thickness of aluminium roofing sheets is 0.4mm. The substandard products with the quality of 0.25mm were, however, imported into Nigeria at the detriment of unsuspecting members of the public.”
He lamented that despite SON having state coordinators nationwide, this has not prevented the presence of substandard roofing sheet products across the country.
He noted that in as much as the association commends SON for the seizure of the goods in Uyo, the associating is requesting that names of the importers of the sub-standard goods be made public.
