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Son Warns Nigerians: Stop Buying Cement Without Expiry Date

The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has warned Nigerians not to buy cement without expiry date effective from January 2015.

The Director General of SON, Dr. Joseph Odumodu, said the directive to inscribe expiry date on the commodity by the manufacturers were reached by the 25-memeber Technical Committee on cement and approved by SON for implementation last year.

“The expiry date on cement is six months shelf life for bag, while for air-tight container it is one year. As from January 2015, if you don’t find expiry date on cement, don’t buy it because when you do, if anything happen to your building, you only have yourself to be blamed,” Odumodu stated.
Recall that almost four months ago, SON issued a 60-day ultimatum to cement manufacturers on product labelling and traceability requirements.

Primarily, the new guidelines mandate the manufacturers to indicate on product bags the manufacturing and expiry dates, product application information as well as the batch numbers of the products.

Cement manufacturers, including Dangote Cement, Lafarge Nigeria, Unicem, Ibeto Cement, Ashaka Cement and Sokoto Cement, had appealed to the agency to review its initially-proposed 30-day deadline to enable them to implement the changes in their processes.

The move, which is expected to enhance traceability in case of product failures, also places a responsibility on cement manufacturers to ensure that their products meet required guidelines and health and safety requirements.

Nigerian cement producers are also expected to submit their advertisements and commercials for pre-approval by the SON before they are sent to the media, while processes should be initiated to ensure that products are properly stored by distributors and retailers to avoid compromising product integrity.