Lagos, July 10, 2023 -The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has again called for collaboration of critical stakeholders in the nation’s ports to revamp Nigerian non-oil exports.
Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, its Director General, expressed the agency’s discomfort at the alarming rate at which Nigerian food exports were being rejected abroad at a consultative meeting with Pre-shipment Inspection Agents (PIAs) on Friday,
The Director General was represented at the meeting by Dr Abimbola Adegboye, the Director, Port Inspection Directorate (PID), who also heads the Office of Trade and International Relations (OTIR).
Adeyeye said the meeting was aimed at building effective collaboration with other agencies to complement NAFDAC’s robust regulatory policies and seek collaboration with sister agencies for a unified export procedure.
She expressed dismay that a competent authority on food safety matter with all her acclaimed global accreditation in food safety testing could be totally blanked out in the listed requirements for issuance of Clean Certificate of Inspection (CCI) by the Pre-shipment Inspection Agents.
“No wonder there are high volumes of rejected exports from Nigeria as the NAFDAC regulated products were not tested nor production processes validated for compliance before export,” she said.
Present at the meeting were representatives of Neroli Technologies Limited, the agent covering South-south and South-west zone; Anglia International Services Limited, the agent covering North-West and North-Central zone and Gojopal Nigeria Limited, the PIA covering North-East and South-East zone.
They all made commitments to rectify this lapse on their websites and in their process, while enlightening their clients to use the Nigeria Single Window for Trade portal (www.swt.gov.ng) to procure their exports certification.
NAFDAC, as a governmental agency, was established by Enabling Act Cap N1 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN) 2004 as the competent authority in Nigeria and charged with the responsibility of regulating and controlling the quality of manufactured, importation, exportation, distribution, advertisement, sale, and consumption of food, drug, chemicals, and other regulated products.
Essentially, NAFDAC’s mandate is to ensure that traded products are of good quality, safe and wholesome.
The agency said its Port Inspection Directorate had met with the Chairman of Comprehensive Import Supervision Scheme (CISS) and Nigeria Export Supervision Scheme NESS, Area Comptroller of Nigeria Customs Services at the Ports
It said advocacy visits were also made to export sheds at seaports, airports, and land boarders.
Adeyeye expressed her appreciation to the PIAs as a main actor in the export chain, saying that coming together of the critical stakeholders would help to make export of non-oil products better, more robust and more consultative.
“NAFDACs door is opened to enhance export and trade, we encourage and support trade of quality products”, she said, adding that “we are enjoining the PIAs to be part of the game and to make sure we collaborate effectively,” she said.
The NAFDAC boss also said that the agency acknowledged the importance of having broader and deeper Interactions and collaborations with sister agencies such as Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON), Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS), Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Nigeria Custom Service (NCS) etc.
Adeyeye emphasized the position of export as a major aspect of building every country’s economy in view of its importance in international trade and economic stability,
She said the reason for regulation of the sector was to ensure that products that would leave a country’s shores would be of good quality, safe and meet international best practices, among others.
Adeyeye said trade is particularly critical for Nigeria’ economic makeup, adding that Nigeria exported $57.7 billion of goods in 2021, making it the world’s 52nd most exporting country.
She said cocoa beans, sesame seeds, cashew and seven other products topped the list of agricultural commodities Nigeria exported within the first nine months of 2022, generating N427.6 billion or $1.02 billion.
The NAFDAC DG raised alarm that huge volume of Nigeria’s exported agricultural commodities were rejected by the European Union for not meeting required standards.
She said that EU countries seized about 82 percent of Nigeria’s agricultural being exported illegally.
According to her, these products are non-documented items and people move them out without clearance by the relevant regulatory agency.
The NAFDAC boss listed some reasons for rejection of Nigerian export abroad.
A reason is the technical barrier issues like defective packaging and inadequate labelling, non-documentation, unauthorised transition, Illegal importation, non-compliance to destination markets’ standards as the EU will reject consignments containing food that do not comply with EU Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) for Vet Medicine and Pesticides, and Maximum Limits (MLs) for Contaminants in foods.
Others reasons include exporters’ boycott of relevant regulatory agency like NAFDAC, in the process of exportation, which leads to export rejection, private huge losses and absence of government-to-government communications.
She said that tightening the regulatory and inspection regime for exports of food items and agricultural products was one of the ways to address export rejections.
Adeyeye advised relevant government agencies and associations involved in Nigerian exports to ensure agriculture products exported were safe, of good quality and meet the specified International Standards.
‘’When all other relevant efforts are merged, we can achieve the reduction of reject on Nigerian export food commodities and increase foreign exchange earnings,’’ she said. (GBN)
