The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has cautioned clearing agents and importers against illegal activities, saying sanctions await culprits of any shady deals.
The caution is in a statement signed by NAFDAC’s Resident Media Consultant, Mr Olusayo Akintola in Abuja on Sunday.
Akintola stated that the warning was given by the agency’s Director-General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, during a recent virtual stakeholders meeting.
He quoted Adeyeye as saying “NAFDAC will not tolerate any unprofessional act from its stakeholders; the disturbing development where agents, with the connivance of importers, engage in falsification of documents will not be tolerated nor treated with kid gloves any longer.
“We shall take all legal means as an agency set up by the Law of Nigeria to prosecute any erring stakeholders, importers.”
The NAFDAC boss, who advised importers to desist from entrusting the entire process of clearance their consignments to agents, said “youare urged to initiate the clearance of your goods.
“I am happy to state that from wherever in the world, you can process the clearance of your products with NAFDAC without visiting any formation of NAFDAC or port offices.”
She also advised importers and clearing agents to ensure that they completed every clearing transaction with NAFDAC “up to the point of generation of NAFDAC electronic Release Notices.”
She reiterated commitment to modernise NAFDACs processes and institutionalisation of international best practices in the way activities were conducted in the agency.
She added that NAFDAC had deployed various processes to ensure auto verification of documents presented to the agency during clearance.
She said “the agency had placed in the hands of stakeholders, the ability to verify the true status of clearance of regulated products and ensure that it rewarded clients with low risk profile.
“I wish to appeal that you comply with the fast-changing updates currently ongoing in NAFDAC, these include the current issuance of electronic NAFDAC Invoices, NAFDAC Receipts, First Endorsement Notices and Release Notices.
“We are conscientiously working toward assisting stakeholders to achieve regulatory compliance by ensuring that these requirements are made transparent and accessible to stakeholders through the availability of regulations, guidelines, tariff, and process requirements on the NAFDAC website.
“I have also ensured that we maintain transparency and continue the implementation of the Quality Management Systems in our ports processes, this has led to a review and update of existing Standards Operating Procedures (SOP).
“We also maintain the implementation of strategic QMS activities for ISO 9001-2015 certification, and entrenchment of World Health Organisation (WHO) global benchmarking (ISO 9004) across all the Airports, Seaports, and land borders.” (NAN)
