By Hassan Zaggi
The Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria (PCN) has called on stakeholders in the pharmaceutical industry in Anambra to support the state government under the leadership of Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo, in its effort to construct Coordinated Wholesale Center (CWC) in the state.
The Registrar of the PCN, Pharm Ibrahim Babashehu Ahmed, made the call at the ground breaking ceremony for the construction of CWC at Oba, Idemmili South Local Government Area of Anambra State, at the weekend.
The ground-breaking ceremony was conducted by the state governor, Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo.
He disclosed that the establishment of the CWC was geared towards the closure and relocation of the Onitsha over-head drug market to this regulated centre.
“The goal is to achieve a well ordered drug distribution system in the country and bring sanity to the drug distribution channel aimed at improving access to quality, effective and safe medicines.
“This will inadvertently eliminate the circulation of falsified and counterfeit medicines in the country,” Pharm Ibrahim Babashehu explained.
He recalled that the concept of Coordinated Wholesale Center (CWC) was approved by the Federal Government in 2015 with the goal to relocate the stakeholders in drug business that are operating in the open markets which are unregulated and characterized with unwholesome activities to regulated centres as CWC.
Anambra State, the PCN Registrar noted, along with three other states including Lagos, Abia and Kano were the first set of States granted approval for the establishment of CWC.
Pharm Ibrahim Babashehu disclosed that the PCN granted the location approval “of this site, Oba, to the Central Pharmaceutical and Allied Products (CPAPWL), the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for the stakeholders in the Bridge-Head market, Onitsha after the successful location approval inspection was conducted on October 20, 2016.
“The location approval was subsequently conveyed on November 04, 2016, to enable the SPV commenced development of the CWC in compliance with the approved design.
“Let me restate that we are grateful to Mr Governor for bringing this project to life after several years of unwarranted delay.
“It may interest Mr Governor to know that the other two states that were among the first set of states granted approval for CWC commenced construction activities immediately they were granted location approval and as a matter of fact, one of them (Kano) is about to be commissioned.”
