More than 70 percent of food exported from Nigeria to foreign nations is rejected there, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has said.
NAFDAC Director-General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye said this at the launch of the new agency office complex at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport MMIA) in Lagos over the weekend.
Adeyeye said that the issue has been causing huge financial losses to the exporters and Nigeria at large.
“Over 70 per cent of the products that leave our ports get rejected. Considering the money spent on getting those products out of the country, it is a double loss for both the exporter and the country,” Adeyeye said.
However, she noted, the incidence of rejection of Nigeria’s food exports by other countries may soon become a thing of the past if collaboration between NAFDAC and other government agencies at the ports is strengthened.
Alongside this, she said, NAFDAC would ensure goods being exported are of requisite quality and meet the regulatory requirements of the importing countries before they are even packaged.
She noted that “without the effective presence of NAFDAC at the ports and land borders”, the mandate of safeguarding the quality of Nigerian food exports to other nations cannot be guaranteed.
Adeyeye hailed the police the police and Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) for the symbiotic relationship that exists between their managements and the agency.
“Without customs, we will not be able to do a lot of what we have been able to do,” Adeyeye said.
She added that without the police, NAFDAC cannot do much in terms of investigation and enforcement.
“We have over 80 policemen with us in NAFDAC. They help us a lot when we are doing raids or investigations as the case may be,” she said.
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