The Nigeria Meteorological Agency, NiMeT has received the 2015 International Standards Organization (ISO) certification, making it the first African Meteorological Agency to attain to the 2015 standard.
Disclosing this on Tuesday in Abuja, the NiMeT Director General/CEO, Professor Sani Abubakar Mashi noted that the certification was attained after the facilities and mode of operations were upgraded to the 2015 standard as was ordered by ISO.
Professor Mashi pointed out that the feat was worth celebrating as big African countries like South Africa are yet to meet up with the 2015 standard.
According to him,”I want to let you know that we are ISO certified. We were initially certified in 2008 and in 2015 those countries which were certified were asked by ISO to upgrade to the 2015 standard.We did and invited ISO to come and inspect us.
“They came, looked at what we were doing, and saw that we have met their requirements so they certified us. By this we are now the first in Africa to be certified. We have written to the Honorable Minister that we need to celebrate this as a country. This is something worth celebrating” he said.
The Director General also noted that Nigeria, in keeping to its big brother role provides weather forecasting services for some West African countries.
“As we are speaking the weather forecasting services for some west African countries are actually being provided by NiMeT.
“NiMeT is currently providing weather services for Liberia, Sierra leone, our regional training center which is WMO approved is at Lagos and providing Services to other sister nations in the West African Sub region” Mashi disclosed.
