ONITSHA – The Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) on Wednesday sealed two factories suspected to be involved in the production of counterfeit and substandard goods in Nsugbe, near Onitsha, in Anambra.
Also raided was the popular Menax foam market in Onitsha where mattresses of various brands and other fake items were impounded.
Some of the seized products were imitations of popular brands, including mattresses, shaving sticks, toothbrushes and razor blade.
Also impounded were equipment and materials used in the production of the fake items.
Briefing newsmen after the operation, the Head of SON in the state, Mr Albert Wilberforce, put the value of the impounded items and equipment at more than N2 billion.
Wilberforce said that the raid was necessitated to curb the negative economic, health and social consequences of the fake products, which were largely consumables.
According to him, adulteration of foam products was crippling the manufacturing sub-sector and the textile industry in particular and was frustrating the industrial revolution master plan of the Federal Government.
“Our manufacturing sector is almost dead because of these fake products; about 90 percent of the foam products here are substandard and most of them are unbranded,” he said.
He said that owners of the factories fled before the team arrived.
Reacting to the raid, Mr Tochukwu Okoye, Chairman of Onitsha Foam Dealers Association, acknowledged that some of the foams were fake but argued that it was unjust to impound the entire mattresses in the market.
Okoye said that the union did not support any member who indulged in unwholesome business practice and urged SON not to punish the innocent with the bad ones.
“What they are doing in not normal; I feel sad because it is intimidation. Most of the foams they are taking are original foams registered with SON.
“Our union is not in support of faking products but these naked foams are registered, and foam, including the very popular ones, is now naked because people are afraid of buying imitation. (NAN)