Oluyinka Onigbinde
An innovation and enterprise consultant, Dr, Eniola Yemi Temidayo has blamed lack of adequate required certification for reason why Nigeria exports are rejected in the international market.
Temidayo, while speaking during the induction ceremony of members into the Institute of Export Operations and Management (IEOM) in Port Harcourt recently, attributed the rejection to a lack of adequate certification and training including exposure on export business in the international market.
Temidayo who is also a lecturer of entrepreneurship and strategic management at the University of Port Harcourt in its explanation, recognized the need for anyone who wants to go into export business to first undergo full training about the business and acquire the certification needed for such export.
At the investiture, an exporter Mrs. Bola Muse had raised alarm over rejection of Nigeria processed meat by some European and Arab countries.
But responding, he said, “export meat to the middle east basically to the Arab speaking countries which are more dominated by Muslims and of course for the Muslim society, if you are going to be slaughtering cattle or cow, there is a process. The process is determined by the doctrines in the Quran. So they are expected to follow that process in killing animals to make it fit for consumption.
“The process involves certifying the health or healthy state of the animal. But you find out in Nigeria that we are in a country where our abattoirs are not even properly monitored. In Nigeria we slaughter unhealthy animals and that fails in their lab test.
Read Also: Customs Intercepts 234 Tonnes Of Fertiliser Along Nigeria-Cameroon Border
“Also, before you can say you want to export meat to Middle East do you have the required certification; you don’t just export for the sake of exporting, if you are exporting meat to Middle East countries, you need to have the Halal Certification, then the cow or cattle must be killed according to their believe, the Islamic country insist that the process of ensuring that this food is consumable or fit for consumption. That is the whole process of the Halal certification. And that it should be killed by somebody who should be killing it, who has to be Muslim; a non-Muslim can’t kill cattle for them to consume, so we need to understand all of these processes, if not some of our export will continue to be rejected.
“The standards that are out there in the international market place as regards export have gone beyond the final quality of the product. One of the things that we are looking at is that even from the source where you are, into the export of farm produce, the standard has gone beyond the quality of your product. The (farm) places where you raised your crops, the input you have used in raising those crops are important.
“Most Nigerian companies that want to go into export are not aware of these standards and processes, so some of them just end in producing and when they finish producing, they just send them to company that check the standards; that is the quality in terms of the backward processes that they used in producing the final product. At the end of the day, you will see that they are either forced to reroute their product through another country that will now absorb their products and then sell. In the process, you know if you want to reroute your product to another country that will be more cost for you and to a large extent you are involved in what is illegal” he said.
Kindly like us on Facebook/twitter
