By Chimezie Anaso
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), has called on manufacturers of regulated products to join the crusade to safeguard the health of the public by conforming to set standards.
Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, Director-General of NAFDAC, made the call at the two-day stakeholders forum with manufacturers in Onitsha, the commercial capital town of Anambra.
Participants in the forum included producers of water, bread, beverages, spices, dairy, vegetable oil, flour, cosmetics, herbal, chemical, medical device, pharmaceutical and imposters.
Adeyeye, represented by Mr Collins Ogedegbe, the Deputy Director in charge of Enugu Zonal office of NAFDAC, said the forum was a step in the right direction in its effort to update stakeholders on the agency’s activity.
He said the mandate of NAFDAC was to regulate and control the manufacture, importation, exportation, distribution, advertisement, sale and use of food, drug, cosmetics, medical devices, packaged water, chemicals and detergents.
He said the role of the stakeholders in ensuring a sanitised market and healthy population could not be overemphasised, adding that beyond enforcement, their voluntary compliance was highly solicited.
“The dangers of the use of counterfeit and unwholesome medicines are enormous. They include pharmacological issues such as respiratory depression, central depression, severe drowsiness, muscle rigidity, unconsciousness/coma.
“Your feedback on the challenges you face during the discharge of your business are very important to us. We seek your compliance and collaborative effort so as to assist NAFDAC in the execution of its mandate,” he said.
Also speaking, Dr Christiana Esenwa, a deputy director in the Investigation and Compliance Directorate, said the interaction was part of the agency’s advocacy against food fraud and other corner cutting measures engaged by manufacturers.
Esenwa regretted that some manufacturers who got approval for their production processes would reduce their qualities soon after hitting the market.
She said the agency was consistently conducting compliance surveillance on the markets, warning that violators would not be spared.
According to her, soon after registration, most of them go back to fraudulent ways wherein they reduce the quality of their products and unsuspecting customers buy and consume them.
“We have a post market surveillance team which goes into the market and takes samples to test in our laboratory,” she said.
On his part, Mr Louis Madubuattah, Coordinator of NAFDAC in Anambra, said the engagement stakeholders was a way of eliciting useful information that would enrich the capacity of the agency to deliver on its mandate.
Madubuattah commended the people of Anambra for their industry and entrepreneurial spirits but noted that a few of them were operating below set standards.
He encouraged members who notice that a product was substandard to feel free and inform the agency for necessary action.
“We have come to observe that a good number of people are not complying and our field observation is part of what informed this stakeholders forum. (NAN)
