SMEDAN and the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) have concluded plans to launch a special project termed ‘Product Services Monitoring Program’ (PROSERVE), which entails creating a databank of providers and importers of genuine goods and services with a view to protect both producers and consumers from counterfeiting and minimizing fraud in the market.

SMEDAN DG, Alhaji Muhammad Nadada Umar, while receiving officials of the Council at the SMEDAN Headquarters in Abuja, said that a comprehensive database would be available in the country before the end of the year, adding that he was confident that the initiative would have far-reaching effects on the economy.

Alhaji Umar commended the Consumer Protection Council for bringing PROSERVE to the drawing board but cautioned the tax authorities to be lenient with MSMEs in fixing tariffs on goods, saying high tariffs generate multiplier effect on the general public who make up the final consumers in the country.

He urged the Federal Government to stop remain consistent with policies which affect the development of the manufacturing sector of the economy, adding that Agencies like SMEDAN and CPC should have been in existence since independence so that challenges facing the economy, especially in relation to low-income groups would have been curtailed. ‘’ The over-concentration on politics after the nation’s attainment of political independence made the real sector, responsible for developing the economy, to take the back seat. Hence, the numerous challenges bedeviling the country today,” he noted.

In her remarks, the Director General of CPC, Mrs Ify Umenyi, accompanied by the Acting Director, Surveillance and Enforcement, Ms Riftiat Folami and Acting Director, Finance and Administration, Ifeanyi Chukwujekwu, urged SMEDAN to form part of the Stakeholders Forum Advisory Council (SFAC) charged with ensuring that SMEs in the country are registered and manufactured products meet specifications for the overall benefit of the final consumers.