… bans measuring of milk, cereals in cups, other measures in 2024
By Hassan Zaggi
The Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, has disclosed that in the next few weeks, the agency will put in place stringent measures and be more critical with process of issuing permits for the importation of bulk food raw materials.
She further said that from 2024, NAFDAC will not tolerate people “people measuring milk and cereals in cups and measures in 2024. It is an unhygienic practice. It is not good for the general population in terms of food safety and hygiene.”
She disclosed that at a the end-of-year stakeholders’ dialogue and feedback session with stakeholders in the food manufacturing industry in Nigeria.
Represented by the Director of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (FSAN), Mrs. Eva Edwards, the Director General expressed concern over what she described as the perennial problem of ubiquity of bulk food items that are found in the markets.
According to the NAFDAC DG, the items enter the country because companies have applied to use them in the manufacture of their registered products, noting with dismay that ‘’we are concerned that we find these items being sold in measures, scoops in the open markets.
“So we are looking at that process of issuing permits for bulk food raw materials very critically’’.
She warned that, the Agency has put in place additional measures for assessing and verifying the utilisation records of each company that applies for import permits to import bulk food raw materials.
‘’We don’t want to just see your stock cards, we want to know what you imported in the previous year. We want to know what you used because there are some calculations that we need to make,” she explained.
Prof. Adeyeye, however, emphasised that if they can show records of utilisation of the quantities requested in a previous cycle, that it was used, ‘’we will check and do our calculations and if we realise that yes that company is doing business to those levels, we look at the quantity requested and grant approval.
“When you are projecting for the coming year, obviously you are also thinking about doing more business. There is always some allowance for that’.
She said that NAFDAC would continue to advocate for the support of her partners and stakeholders in the quest for better, safer, healthier, more nutritious food, adding that ‘’we all stand to benefit from this as we are all consumers’’.
Speaking, the Chairman, Technical Committee of the Association of Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Employers (AFBTE), Mr Fred Chiazor, commended NAFDAC for its proactiveness in responding to developments in the industry.
‘’FSAN as a Directorate sees the stakeholders as partners and not as criminals. It is a Directorate that wants improvement, and this is a win-win.
“We are happy that you are doing what you should be doing to grow the industries,’’ he said.
A statement by the Resident Media Consultant, Sayo Akintola, noted thatNAFDAC and the stakeholders would continue to partner to find areas of better collaboration and improvement in the coming year.
