The Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has accused the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) of complacency in the discharge of its responsibility especially as it relates to importation of psychotropic drugs at the Nigerian seaports, airports and land border stations adding that the agency has performed below expectations.
The National Vice President of ANLCA, Dr. Kayode Farinto who made this known in an interview with Primetime Reporters in Lagos recently noted that of all the drug related seizures made in the last one year, 99% of them were made by the operatives of the Nigeria Customs Service and were eventually handed over to NAFDAC.
Farinto maintained that the agency had not collaborated with the stakeholders in the nation’s maritime industry whom he said were left in the dark of the activities of NAFDAC even as he said that the agency was only after collecting revenue for the federal government and nothing more.
According to him,” It is only SON that is collaborating with us in the last three years. Where is NAFDAC? Nothing like that and this can be narrowed down to say this is your CSR if you have used not more than N5 million to sensitize the public, it goes a long way in reducing the crime. But where is NAFDAC? NAFDAC is nowhere to be found, you don’t even know their conditions, when you want to clear anything related to NAFDAC, you go online, they are only interested in revenue. It is only revenue. Most of the regulatory agencies are not regulating anything; they are generating revenue except SON that is trying their best.
“Because SON is collaborating, it went ahead to the extent that officers that have spent over five years have been removed from Lagos. That is part of collaboration, that will go a long way to say perhaps, this officer has been long at the port, he may be conniving but where is NAFDAC, where is NESREA? These are people that will only go after manifests, stop delivery of consignments, go after their money or the bribe that they want to take. So, we have a long way to go”.
He continued, “I want to say emphatically that NAFDAC has performed below expectations; it is unfortunate that the records of the late Dora Akunyili have been bastardized. Had it been we were able to maintain that level immediately that woman died, perhaps now, we should be thinking of having a sanitized society but if you look at it in the last one year, the level of psychotropic drugs coming into our country has been increasing not even in the arithmetic progression but in geometric progression.
“Let us thank customs that they are even arresting them, it is not customs role because some of these drugs pay duty but because they are regulated by NAFDAC and they (customs) know that they are controlled drugs, that is why customs is apprehending them but where is NAFDAC? Look at the seizures on drugs in the last one year, 99% of them were intercepted by the Nigeria Customs Service and handed over to NAFDAC. NAFDAC has not collaborated; NAFDAC has failed in their responsibility. NAFDAC is only interested in registration fee, import permit and so on. This is not the statutory reason for establishing NAFDAC and I put it to whoever is the DG of NAFDAC that they have failed in their responsibility, that is why we have the level of increase of psychotropic drugs in our society”.
He however expressed happiness that the Governing Council of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) had been inaugurated even as he believed that the Council would go a long way in correcting the perceived wrongs perpetuated in the industry by some government agencies.
Meanwhile, all efforts made by this medium to get across to NAFDAC for its official reaction were not successful as the spokesman of the agency could not be reached as at the time of filing this report.
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