Fidelia Okafor
The Director General, Standards Organisation of Nigeria, SON, Mr. Osita Aboloma had said that SON is poised to reposition its workforce, processes and activities for optimal performance.

He stated this in Lagos while welcoming participants to the on-going 2017 Management Retreat of the Organisation with the theme “Repositioning for Optimal Performance in a Diversified Economy”.

Mr. Aboloma enumerated the reasons for the retreat as including;

To fulfil his promise of running a transparent and consultative administration
To enhance team spirit and synergy among the workforce
To address the decline in service charge incomes occasioned by the economic recession
To strategize on aiding the effective implementation of the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan and
To define strategies towards galvanizing the standardization and quality assurance of Micro, small and medium enterprises nationwide within the next two months as challenged by the Acting President recently.

The Director General, then challenged the staff to come up with ways of repositioning SON in standardization and quality assurance for optimal performance in a diversified economy.

In his opening address, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Aminu Aliyu Bisalla who stood in for the Hon. Minister reiterated the Ministry’s resolve to support trade by building small businesses.

He commended SON for its achievements in the fight against the influx of substandard products and challenged the organization to continue to devise new strategies in tune with global developments. The Permanent Secretary pledged the continuous support of the Ministry.

The keynote speaker, Professor John Akanya, a former Director General of SON presented a paper on SON yesterday, today and tomorrow. He went down memory lane and enumerated the progress made over the years.

Professor Akanya urged total commitment of SON staff to the vision of the leadership in order to accelerate the achievement of organizational’s mandate and its set goals.

He emphasized the need for SON to strengthen its collaboration with various stakeholder groups to boost the effectiveness of its service delivery.

The former DG then made recommendations for a better SON of the future from a charismatic and motivative leadership, effective quality management system implementation, engagement of people, competence and capacity building to provision of needed resources.

He ended the presentation with the essence of a quality management system thus; “Say what you do; Write it down; Do it; Check it and Improve on it”