The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, says the agency will not fail in its mandate to ensure that food and drinks consumed in the country are safe for consumption.
The agency said this is necessary considering that Nigeria imports a larger part of its food needs from abroad.
Prof. M0jisola Adeyeye, NAFDAC DG made this known in a statement on Sunday calling on other agencies working in the seaports to collaborate with the agency to ensure that foods consumed by Nigerians are safe for consumption.
‘’The mandate to safeguard the health of the populace through ensuring that food, medicines, cosmetics, medical devices, chemicals, and packaged water are safe, efficacious and of the right quality in an economy that is overwhelmingly dependent on importation of the bulk of its finished products and raw materials could never have been actualized without effective presence of NAFDAC at the ports and land borders,’’ Adeyeye said.
Adeyeye also called on the sister agencies to work with NAFDAC to ensure that food export from Nigeria is not rejected abroad.
She explained that over 70 per cent of food exports from Nigeria were rejected abroad, particularly in Europe and United States, noting that this has resulted in huge financial losses to the exporters and the country at large.
She said the deplorable state of export trade facilitation for regulated products leaving the country has continued to be a serious cause for concern for NAFDAC, adding that a trip to NAFDAC export warehouses within the international airport will explain unequivocally the major reason for the continuous rejection of Nigerian exports abroad.
Adeyeye, however, noted that the agency was responding to this great challenge by initiating a collaborative measures with the government agencies at the Ports towards ensuring that goods are of requisite quality and meet the regulatory requirements of the importing countries and destinations before such are even packaged and hauled to the ports for shipment.
Adeyeye called on all stakeholders in the export trade to see this as a call to duty and collaborate with NAFDAC for the sake of the country.
