• February 17, 2025

 

By Chikwe Azoma
The National Agency for Food and  Drugs Administration and Control(NAFDAC) has condemned a publication in a national daily on 28th  December 2019 titled “Port congestion worsens as NAFDAC conducts E-certi’cation”
In a press statement, Director of Special Duties at NAFDAC, Dr. Abubakar Jimoh, said that the contents of the publication were completely untrue, baseless and a bid to mislead the general public on the clearance of products at the various seaports.
According to him, as part of the ongoing modernization reforms by the Federal Government of Nigeria at the ports,   NAFDAC   has assiduously   worked   towards   the automation   and   digitization   of NAFDAC processes and licenses respectively.
“This has resulted in the development and deployment of NAFDAC e-licenses for utilization in the clearance of NAFDAC regulated products. Prior to the deployment of the e-license on 9th  September 2019, NAFDAC had held sensitization workshops for importers and authorized Dealer Banks (ADBs) in 2018.
“This was to prepare importers of NAFDAC regulated products on the need to digitize any documents that were not in electronic formats while the processes for the issuance of new NAFDAC licenses was automated and processed on the Federal Government Single Window for Trade which is a one-stop portal for various Agencies operating at the Ports.
“In the past, NAFDAC documents were physically scanned and attached to the Central Bank of Nigeria Form M platform. As a result of this, the ADBs and the Nigeria Customs Service(NCS) were not able to verify and authenticate submitted NAFDAC documents.
“This gave room for unscrupulous importers to forge and use expired NAFDAC licenses to process their Form Ms.  With the commencement of the e-license era, NAFDAC integrated her licenses with the Form M platform such that importers are no longer required to scan and attach NAFDAC licenses but only input their Approval Reference Numbers which would be auto-verified by the Form M platform during processing.
“As a result, many importers who were used to utilizing unapproved licenses could not process their Form Ms. It  is also important to  note that  it is  against the  Federal Ministry  of Finance  Import Guidelines,   Procedures   and   Documentation   requirements under   the   Destination Inspection Scheme to ship any consignment without opening Form M.
“Form M cannot be validly opened  when you do not  have a valid license from the Agency regulating the product.  Those in this predicament have been violating this import procedure for years. Any person intending to import physical goods into Nigeria shall in the first instance process   e-Form   M   through   any   authorized   dealer   bank   irrespective   of   the   value   and whether or not payment is involved.”
Jimoh stated that NAFDAC as a responsible regulatory agency has determined to facilitate trade and comply with the Federal Government’s reform agenda for the various ports.
“Our current drive is to encourage compliance, be customer-focused   and improve the ease of doing business while ensuring that safe and quality regulated products are available for Public Health use.'”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Instagram

This error message is only visible to WordPress admins

Error: No feed found.

Please go to the Instagram Feed settings page to create a feed.