The Senate on wednesday frowned at the N83 million allocated to meals and refreshment by the Standards Organization of Nigeria in the 2016 Budget proposal of the agency.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Trade and Investment, Senator Sam Egwu, expressed dissatisfaction with amount earmarked for meal.
Egwu also queried the rationale for over N100 million allocated for overseas monitoring and evaluation by the same agency.
Egwu complained that the figures presented by the agency is over bloated and conflicting.
Defending the budget of N10.3 billion of the agency, the Director General, Dr. Joseph Odumodu, said SON wishes to optimally explore its revenue generating arm and would add about N120 million into the consolidated revenue account at the end of the fiscal year.
Odumodu also said there is a need to strengthen the states offices of SON for better efficiency and that SON also wants to exploit the SON act of 2015, which empowers it to prosecute and send to jail all those involved in the manufacturing and importation of substandard goods.
The DG further called for strong support and legislation for the International Memorandum of Understanding, which will compels companies that manufacture substandard products that finds its way into the Nigerian market to bear the cost of replacing the substandard product with the genuine one, while their Nigerian counterpart will face the full weight of the law.
This, he argued, will reduce the tango between foreign manufacturers and their Nigerian counterparts.
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