The Federal Government has directed all its Ministries, Departments and Agencies to henceforth, patronise internationally accredited services of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, SON, for the certification of their management systems and processes in accordance with international best practices.
A circular from the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Boss Mustapha, informed all MDAs of the attainment of international accreditation for the SON Management Systems Certification, MSC, services.
The scope of the accreditation, according to the circular, covers four International Organisation for Standardisation, ISO standards namely; Quality Management, Systems, QMS, Standards, Environmental Management Systems, EMS Standards, Food Safety Management Systems, FSMS Standards and Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems, OHSMS Standards.
The SGF thus directed all the MDAs to take optimum advantage of the SON Management Systems Certification services in line with the Presidential Executive Order 4 on support of local content.
According to him, patronage of SON MSC would lead to huge savings in foreign exchange hitherto expended by some MDAs in procuring such services from foreign organisations.
On the SGF directive, SON Director General, Osita Aboloma stated that the accreditation has brought his agency at par with its contemporaries in Europe, America, Asia and some parts of Africa.
According to him, SON international accreditation of its MSC services is coming on the heels of a similar attainment for its Training Services which focuses on development of National capacity in international management systems standards.
He recalled that the SON Training Services (STS) Centre received certification by the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) and the International Register of Certified Auditors (IRCA) as an Approved Training Partner (ATP) in 2018.
The Centre thus became the first CQI and IRCA approved Training Centre in Nigeria and the West African Region to offer certified courses by the two international institutions, he said.
