…frown on NAFDAC’s return to facilties
Stakeholders of ports in the country have frowned on the return of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control to the facilities.
They claimed that the development would be counter-productive to the efforts made by previous administrations to fast track cargo clearance at the ports.
NAFDAC, in collaboration with relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies and with the active support of the Office of the National Security Adviser, Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, Ministry of Transport, was asked to return to the seaports and borders on Thursday.
The agency, according to the Federal Government, was returned to effectively control the importation of unregulated products, falsified and substandard drugs, unwholesome foods, narcotic drugs and hazardous chemical substances and foods into the country. Government had initially reduced the number of agencies operating at the ports from 14 to six.
But the President, Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents, Mr. Tony Nwabunike, urged the Federal Government to further reduce the number of agencies at the ports.
The Customs agents’ boss, who made the plea in Lagos, explained that it was important to know that bringing in many government agencies into the ports would not help matters, but slow down the process of clearing cargoes and at the same time, scare patrons to prefer neighbouring countries.
Nwabunike, therefore, tasked the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, to revisit the position paper of her immediate predecessor, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who reduced the number of government agencies at the ports to enable the ports to compete favourably with the foreign ones.
He described Iweala’s position paper as a master piece and an appropriate guideline for port procedures, adding that the presence of so many government agencies at the ports was becoming a very big problem in cargo clearance for operators and investors.
He said, “The Customs service was facilitating trade when it introduced the Nigeria Integrated Customs Information Service, but we were shocked that government had to ask NAFDAC to return to the ports.
“The Nigerian Ports Authority said in February 2018 that only seven agencies were allowed to operate at the ports, but they are now nine. We expect the government to stick to that.”
The agencies allowed representation at the ports are NPA, Nigeria Customs Service, the Nigeria Police, Department of State Security, the Nigeria Immigration Service, Port Health and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria Shippers Council, Alhaji Hassan Bello, admitted that there were indicators to show that, especially the turnaround time for the ships to return, has been reduced.
He argued that such a development could threaten the efficiency of the port in the sense that it had cumbersome clearance procedures.
He said, “That has not made the ports competitive because we are in competition with the ports of neighbouring countries. If the people know that clearing cargoes and doing business in neighbouring countries is cheaper and faster, they will go there.
“The preponderance of agencies in the port is unnecessary. It is not only their presence but at times, some levies and taxes make the whole port environment unsightly.”
Meanwhile, NAFDAC said it received the notice on Wednesday, May 16, 2018 in a letter dated 29th March, 2018 from the office of the Vice-President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, as part of the PEBEC reforms.
In a statement signed on Thursday, the Director General of NAFDAC, Professor Mojisola Adeyeye, said thousands of Nigerians have died because of falsified and substandard medicines.
She also noted that the development became even more necessary following a recently released documentary on codeine abuse.
“Many are currently ill, most likely due to unwholesome foods, drugs and abuse of narcotics and controlled substances, such as codeine, tramadol, pentazocine, etc. These are partly due to exclusion of NAFDAC from our ports since 2011. The recent documentary on codeine abuse brought more attention to the issue,” the NAFDAC boss said.
She added that apart from the dangers posed to public health, drug abuse weakens and slows down economic and national development, as well as “increases the threats to national security”.
