Lagos, Aug. 20, 2023 – The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) says it will no longer accept poorly destroyed expired or stolen products sneaking into the market through scavengers.
It said this practice was endangering lives of innocent consumers, particularly, children.
Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, the NAFDAC Director General, gave the warning on Friday at the Agency’s Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Directorate Stakeholder’s Engagement with food sector operators in Lagos.
She also warned that ‘’if a product doesn’t have NAFDAC number, we can’t guarantee the safety.’’
Adeyeye condemned the habit of patronizing unbranded cereals in the open market with a warning that “when a product is not certified by NAFDAC, it is not advised that anybody should consume it.”
She said that all products that had gone through regulatory processes were packaged with NAFDAC registration number on them.
‘’We cannot speak of the safety of unbranded foods in the open market. We do not know where they have come from. “We don’t know anything about the expiry date. We cannot trace them,” she said.
Adeyeye recalled that in 2021 and 2022, the Agency carried out a lot of investigations and enforcement activities on unbranded cereals leading to the arrest of some people that were selling online in Onitsha and brought them to Lagos.
She said that in the course of investigation it was discovered that some people preferred to buy the unbranded ones in spite of the inherent dangers associated with them.
‘’We considered the circumstances and the packaging, and we couldn’t really understand whether it is cheaper,’’ she said, adding that ‘’we found out that even some smaller packages, the smallest packages of cereals, were also removed from the packaging materials and also sold in bulk. They add them together and sell online’.
The NAFDAC boss said some industries were also colluding in the bad practices.
She said ‘’we found out that some of the cereals were picked up from dump sites in Agbara.
She said that investigations showed that the products were disposed through Ogun State Waste Management Authority, stressing that disposal methods of companies also an issue.
‘’If you want to dispose of some bad or expired products, you are supposed to destroy it with the assistance of NAFDAC Investigation and Enforcement Directorate, not by company directly through waste disposal authorities.”
Adeyeye said investigations also revealed that some products were stolen from company warehouses ‘’because we found out that not all the products had expired.
“Some of them were in company’s packaging materials when diverted to sell in retail prices online and in the market places.
“Last year the Agency uncovered two warehouses at Trade Fair Complex, Lagos loaded with N3 billion worth of counterfeit drugs and children’s cereals picked from dump sites.
‘’We also must sensitize the industry because if there are compromises in the industry it could lead to serious dangers to our health.
‘’If the SOP in the industry says go and dump it in a dump site, the industry is at fault also’’.
‘’If the person that got it stolen from the factory is going to sell it less than the packaged material from the company, people will want to buy even if it has later been contaminated.
She called for investigation and prosecution of those who were picking unsafe products from dump sites for sale,
She urged manufacturers of food products to always be more concerned about their products in the market by establishing Post Market Surveillance (PMS)unit in their companies.
She recalled that years ago, the Agency had made PMS mandatory for companies, but compliance had been poor.
Adeyeye said that henceforth, if a company doesn’t have Post Marketing Surveillance or Post Marketing Pharmacovigilance (for drug manufacturing Companies) department, the product would not be renewed.
‘’We have asked companies to establish PMS dept where they send people out to the market to see what is happening to their products out there.
“Once you get an inkling of somebody adulterating your product you call us because you don’t have power to go with the police.
“We have the power to go and raid. That’s why we need collaboration because we must change our industrial practice. That’s how to get the best out of your trade.
“Once you tell us, I assure you we will be there in hours in terms of mopping it up and getting the suspect arrested and prosecuted’.
The Agency called for more food safety consciousness and compliance for continuous improvement in imbibing a food safety culture amongst industry players and consumers.
This, she said, would make for the desired conformity with safety practices in processing, production, packaging, distribution and storage of pre-packaged foods.
‘’NAFDAC will continue to advocate for the support of her partners and stakeholders in the quest for better, safer, healthier, more nutritious food. We all stand to benefit from this as we are all consumers,’’ she said. (GBN)
