No more hiding place for peddlers of falsified medicines, unwholesome food products in Nigeria, NAFDAC vows

In its renewed efforts to rid the nation of falsified and counterfeit medicines, unwholesome food and cosmetic products, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has commissioned 73 brand new HILUX utility vehicles, saloon cars and staff buses to enhance operational efficiency.

The Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, said provision of the vehicles would put a permanent end to the hitherto practice whereby clients would bring their vehicles to ferry agency staff to site for inspection.

According to her, the inspection exercise was already compromised ab initio when staff of a regulatory body would have to depend on their clients to transport them to the factory for inspection.

Prof. Adeyeye, in a statement by the Resident Media Consultant to NAFDAC, Sayo Akintola, in Lagos on Sunday, explained that 20 Toyota Camry 2021 brand for some directors were commissioned in Abuja, while 10, 60-Seater Coaster and Hummer buses were commissioned at the Oshodi office complex of the Agency.

According to him, 43 Hilux vans were commissioned at the Investigation and Enforcement Directorate in Apapa to enhance the enforcement and inspection and the regulatory activities of the Agency.

“Our staff deserve the best. And the welfare of our staff is our priority,” she said, adding that the four Coaster buses and the six Toyota Hiace buses commissioned in Oshodi would serve as staff buses to make life more comfortable for the workers in their day-to-day commuting to and from the office.

Prof Adeyeye, who recalled that she met a total debt of N3.2 billion when she resumed as DG about four years ago, said the debt was paid back barely a year after she took over.

She said she took some excruciating cost-saving measures which earned her a lot of funny appellations by the staff such as “we can save N1m from this N5m request to buy a vehicle,” amongst others.

“The money we saved is the money we use for what we need and not what we want,” she said, adding that “when we spend money for wants the nation suffers the consequences. Not just the nation now, our staff will suffer the consequences.

“That’s why we started saving money despite the fact that I met N3.2 billion debt. And within one year, we paid N3.01billion.”

Prof Adeyeye explained that the Agency was currently going through its World Health Organization (WHO) audit, and it’s being judged on seven regulatory functions or a group of activities.

“There is one big area called regulatory inspection. This includes visiting companies to see whether they are compliant with their Good Manufacturing Practices,’ she said, stressing that “it’s our vehicles that will take our staff there.”

According to her, regulatory inspection includes good distribution practice, meaning that all the distributors that handle NAFDAC-regulated products have to be visited to see where those products are being kept whether they are going to break down before they get to the retailer.

She recalled how the Agency was able to burst a syndicate that brought 30 containers of Tramadol to the country about three years ago through a tip-off by the Presidency.

She said the Ports Inspection officers of the Agency kept vigil for days at the ports before the consignments worth over N2 trillion were apprehended and contents destroyed.

“The containers were labelled for bonded terminals. We wouldn’t have been able to do it. It is vehicles that officers of Inspection Directorate used to keep vigil at these ports.”

The NAFDAC DG further explained that the officials of the Investigation and Enforcement Directorate would make use of the utility vehicles to pursue peddlers of contraband, counterfeited products across the nooks and crannies of the country.

“It is not a luxury for us. This is not the end of it. Each state should have at least three Hilux vehicles.”

Prof Adeyeye also noted that the new vehicles would be useful for the officials of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Directorate saddled with the responsibility of inspecting food, water and related products to ascertain their wholesomeness for human consumption with clients scattered all over the country.