All posts by : Joshua Jegede

Nigeria National Accreditation Service (NiNAS), Nigeria, is welcomed as an Affiliate member of ILAC.

We welcome NiNAS and look forward to working with our NiNAS colleagues.

PRESS RELEASE

Nigeria National Accreditation Service (NiNAS) highlighted its importance during the 2017 edition of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) – International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) Joint Annual Meetings that took place from 19 October to 1 November 2017 in Vancouver, Canada.

IAF-ILAC 2017 presented NiNAS with opportunities to engage and network with international accreditation bodies and actively participate in global accreditation activities including working group meetings, task force meetings and general assemblies of both the International Accreditation Forum and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation.

Activities at the conference included discussions on the need for accreditation bodies to align all documents with international standards on general requirements for accreditation bodies assessing and accrediting conformity assessment bodies (ISO/IEC 17011:2017); reports by regional co-operations including by the African Accreditation Cooperation (AFRAC); and updates in membership status.

NiNAS also participated in the International Halal Accreditation Forum (IHAF) workshop on ‘Global Halal Trade, Challenges and Opportunities,’ during which, NiNAS was admitted into IHAF Affiliate Membership.

Nigeria National Accreditation Service also entered into a memorandum of understanding with Gulf Accreditation Council on strategic partnership and cooperation on Accreditation of Conformity Assessment Bodies.

Nigeria National Accreditation Service was established within the framework of National Quality Infrastructure Project for Nigeria (NQIP), funded by the EU and implemented by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

ABUJA, 31 August 2017 – The Nigeria National Accreditation Service (NiNAS) has been officially presented with the Directory of Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs). The directory is a collation of the internationally accredited Conformity Assessment Bodies across the West African region. The formal presentation took place on 22 August 2017 in Abuja during the opening ceremony of the Extended Steering Committee of the West Africa Quality System Programme (WAQSP), with delegates from across the ECOWAS region and Mauritania.

The directory of CABs is specific objective 3 of the WAQSP which aims to provide private and public sectors with access to a network of accredited and competitive conformity assessment services provided in the West African region. The document, with the full title, ‘Directory of Accredited Conformity Assessment Bodies in West Africa’, is a comprehensive list of accredited laboratories in the ECOWAS region, as well as the international accrediting institutions.

During the opening session, the Head of Co-operation of the European Union Delegation to Nigeria & ECOWAS, Mr. Kurt Cornelius, assured the delegates of the EU’s “commitment to trade and quality in West Africa.” ECOWAS Commissioner for Industry and Private Sector Promotion, Mr. Kalilou Traore, stated that “Quality Infrastructure is an indispensable tool to support the [region’s] economy.”

The opening remarks were followed by a review of the directory of CABS, prepared by UNIDO through the WAQSP. Nigerian CABs listed therein are composed of three (3) medical laboratories accredited in ISO 15189 and eight (8) laboratories accredited in ISO IEC 17025. The eleven (11) Nigerian laboratories span both private and public sectors.

The Chief Executive Officer of NiNAS, Mr. Celestine Okanya, received the directory on behalf of the Accreditation Service. In his goodwill message, Mr. Okanya called the directory “a big marketing tool,” saying that the document has helped to identify the market of the future within the ECOWAS and Mauritania.

The Directory of Accredited Conformity Assessment Bodies in West Africa will be published regularly and will also be available online, updated with newly accredited conformity bodies.

Nigerian National Accreditation Service (NiNAS) was established as a component of the National Quality Infrastructure Project for Nigeria (NQIP), which is funded by the EU and implemented by UNIDO.

For more information:

NiNAS website: ninas.ng; and NQIP website: nqi-nigeria.org

Nigeria National Accreditation Service (NiNAS) joined the global accreditation community on 9 June, in Abuja, to celebrate the tenth World Accreditation Day (WAD). NiNAS, created under the aegis of the EU-funded UNIDO National Quality Infrastructure Project, hosted stakeholders from the construction industry, as well as laboratory professionals, media personnel and representatives from the public and private sector. The theme of this year was Accreditation: Delivering confidence in construction and the built environment. The celebration is the first time NiNAS marked the event.

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, gave the keynote address, represented by his Special Adviser on Policy and Legal Matters, Lanre Akinsola. The Minister urged for building standards to be “met and kept, to ensure that the integrity of the construction sector is not compromised, to ensure that the quality of our construction materials meet international standards, and to ensure that our professionals are not only competent on paper.”

UNIDO Representative and Director, Regional Office, Nigeria Hub, Jean Bakole, emphasized that “NiNAS will work to the standards set by the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electro-technical Commission, to deliver impartial, objective and technically competent accreditation services to the Nigerian economy.” Mr. Bakole highlighted the importance of accreditation in the construction and building environment to the Nigerian economy by fostering competitiveness, marketability, and job creation, as well as health, and safety.

UNIDO NQIP Project Manager, Raymond Tavares, encouraged Nigeria to embrace NiNAS and the principles of World Accreditation Day, “as an important pillar of the national quality infrastructure.” He said, “World Accreditation Day is … a reminder that a weak national quality infrastructure can be a major reason for human injury, and structural and material failure in construction. A good accreditation system provides part of the solution to these problems.”

The 2017 theme for World Accreditation Day is a timely one, as Nigeria has recently recorded five collapsed buildings, four of which occurred in May, this year, in Lagos. “In less developed economies, existing commercial and domestic properties, as well as infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges and transport networks, tend to be highly vulnerable to climate and disaster risk,” read the joint statement issued by International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) chairs, presented by the NiNAS Board of Trustees chairperson, Dr. Dahiru Adamu. NiNAS CEO, Celestine O. Okanya said that the theme, “reminds us of the danger posed by constructions that were not designed, approved, built and/or inspected by accredited conformity assessment bodies.” He added that “accreditation can provide support in every stage of construction” from personnel to construction industries’ management systems, to laboratories that provide services to building material producers and regulators.

The President of the Architects Registration Council (ARCON), Umaru Aliyu, represented by Mansur Kurfi and the President of the Council for Registration of Engineers in Nigeria (COREN), Kashim Abdul Ali, represented by Dr. Mayas Adoyi, echoed the “need for more work to be done in the construction industry,” concerning the accreditation and certifying process of equipment and materials and expressed readiness to partner with NiNAS.
NQIP International Expert on Accreditation, Stephen Cross, gave a brief lecture on the impact of accreditation, sharing success stories from another UNIDO-implemented National Accreditation Project, the Southern Africa Development Community Accreditation Service (SADCAS), and highlighted the ECOWAS Regional Accreditation System. This was followed by a highly engaging interactive session that raised the question: “What should be the national response strategy in the context of opportunities offered by accreditation?”

The event closed with a vote of thanks from the UNIDO NQIP Chief Technical Advisor, Dr. Shaukat Malik, who implored the construction industry to adopt accreditation within its systems. The advocacy for accreditation in Nigeria can best be summed in the words of NiNAS CEO, “Integration of accreditation system in our construction industry shall reduce the number of building collapse to barest minimum.”

On the 9th of June 2017, Nigeria National Accreditation Service (NiNAS) will join the global accreditation community to celebrate the World Accreditation Day (WAD). The WAD, is a day set aside globally by the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) to create awareness on Accreditation.

NiNAS has just recently been successfully established through the second component of the National Quality Infrastructure project funded by European Union and implemented by United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Government of Nigeria. For NiNAS and its stakeholders, this year’s celebration is special as NiNAS will be unveiled to all Nigerians at this occasion.

NiNAS accreditation services shall build confidence in Nigeria made products and services for local and international trade by ensuring quality and integrity of these products and services. The establishment of NiNAS is quite timely to support Nigeria and its people in diversification of economy to the non-oil based sources of foreign exchange. This will be achieved by providing accreditation of conformity assessment services, which was hitherto unaffordable and difficult to access, within the reach of conformity assessment bodies (CABs) such as testing and calibration laboratories, inspection and certification bodies.

This implies that these CABs operating within Nigeria now have access to affordable accreditation services that can demonstrate their competence to carry out specific tasks. NiNAS shall grant accreditation to CABs that meet the requirements of specific standards of International Organization for Standards (ISO), and is working towards ensuring that the NiNAS accreditation brand is recognized and accepted globally.
This year’s theme is “Accreditation: Building Confidence in the Construction and Built Environment”. It focuses on how accreditation can support professionals in the construction industry to deliver quality and safe infrastructures. This cannot be achieved without conformity assessment. Accreditation plays the role of ensuring that conformity assessment bodies that test, inspect and certify these constructions are themselves conforming to international standards. Accreditation services can be applied to every component in the construction industry starting from building materials, construction processes, and personnel certification of architects, surveyors, engineers, and all others involved in this process, as well as other sectors of our economy.

Nigeria has recorded a number of building collapses resulting from cases of substandard construction projects. The situation is worsened by non-professionals involved in obtaining and executing construction contracts. NiNAS plans to use this day to bring all stakeholders together to discuss how accreditation can be used as a tool to protect our citizens and their investment by bringing sanity into the construction and built environment through application of accreditation services.

Scroll over the image below for an illustration of the impact and extent that accreditation has in the construction sector and the built environment.

The Nigeria National Accreditation Service (NiNAS) held its annual Board of Trustees(BoT) meeting in Abuja. Dr. Adamu Dahiru the BoT Chairman while declaring the meeting open express satisfaction with work so far done in ensuring that NiNAS is recognized in Nigeria. He also assured of the board’s full commitment in ensuring that accreditation service in Nigeria would achieve its aims.

The Board members while commending the Management staff for their great effort in ensuring that the mandate of NiNAS is fully deployed in compliant with international best practices also reviewed and endorsed the 2017 10-point agenda with a Theme “BUILDING ON THE SOLID FOUNDATION.” The 10 Point agenda are drawn from the 2017 workplan.  The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Celestine Okanya enumerated the 10 Points to include:

1. Full Compliance with all requirements of Corporate Affairs.
2. Strengthening the Governance Structure
3. Investing on a World Class Information & Computer Technology Infrastructure
4. Review and adoption of all draft operational policies
5. Capacity Building of all Staff members
6. Enrolling Qualified Assessors and conducting needed further trainings.
7. Conducting internal and external audit of NiNAS QMS, Policies and Procedure
8. Implementing NiNAS media and communication plan
9. Implementing an achievable sustainable plan
10. Conduct of Pilot Accreditation of Laboratories in Nigeria.