New Cement standard: Court orders Aganga, SON to appear June 10
The Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, yesterday, summoned the Minister of Trade and Investment, Mr. Segun Aganga and the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, SON, to appear on June 10 to show cause why they should not be restrained from enforcing a new cement standard in the country.
The summon followed an ex-parte application filed before the court by Lafarge WAPCO Cement.
Justice Ahmed Mohammed gave the order after he declined to grant the ex-parte application the plaintiff filed through its lawyer, Professor Taiwo Osipitan, SAN, on May 28.
Osipitan had, while moving the application, yesterday, prayed the court to restrain the defendants from enforcing the new cement standard.
It was the argument of the plaintiff that the defendants had no power to force it to manufacture according to the new standard which it said was illegally introduced without any regard to due process of the law.
Osipitan insisted that the licence his client obtained for manufacturing of the former All Purpose 32.5 cement still had up till August 2016 before expiration.
According to him, “There was no notice from SON to vary standard. All we had was a letter written on behalf of the Director-General (of SON) that they had set up a technical committee, and the next thing we heard was an advertisement.
“The Larfarge WAPCO cement had been in use for 50 years. We still have till 2016, two years and two months, to continue to produce what we have been licensed to produce”, he added.
Consequently, he urged the court to stop the two defendants from enforcing the provisions of sections 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the SON Act.
