The National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has pumped over N6 billion of internally generated revenue in the last 8 years on developing infrastructure necessary to facilitate global trading of Nigeria’s pharmaceutical products, Mojisola Adeyeye, NAFDAC’s director has said.
The agency in a sweeping restructuring of strategies to discharge its function has utilised this fund on the expansion of its laboratory capacity across the country, setting it on track to achieve the World Health Organisation Maturity Level (ML4) and the World Listed Authority Status by 2025, Adeyeye said at BusinessDay’s policy intervention series centred on NAFDAC as an agency for economic development and transformation.
Achieving higher global ratings for Nigerian medical products is expected to boost their competitiveness in international trade. This, in turn, will attract the trust of global organizations, encouraging them to purchase these products for their interventions.
Citing the procurement trend of UNICEF in Nigeria, Adeyeye said about 600, 000 cartons of ready-to-use therapeutic food manufactured locally and inspected by NAFDAC were utilised by UNICEF in 2023, a significant increase from less than 100, 000 as of 2018.
She however noted that the naira devaluation has caused a setback for the majority of the 105 those who got this approval as only 35 percent have completed and are at different stages of registration.
Highlighting further measures being implemented to ease doing business and the global benchmark, Adeyeye said the agency has eight new building construction projects ongoing in Oyo, Ondo, Rivers, Imo, Akwa-Ibom, Anambra and Bauchi states.
The commissioned projects are located in Ogun, Osun, Kwara, Lagos (NAHCO) – import and export division; completed projects in Ebonyi, Yobe, Abuja, and Yaba laboratory in Lagos; while projects are ongoing in Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Plateau, Edo, Delta, Enugu states, including vaccine laboratory, NAFDAC office complex renovation in Isolo, Lagos state.
She further stated that ongoing reactivation of the Information Communication technology with hardware and software and digitalisation of regulatory processes led to the inability of the public to access information about the agency.
She further stated that the procurement of over 140 vehicles for regulatory inspection is ongoing.
Adeyeye, speaking about the achievement of the agency since her assumption of office noted that lines of reports had been streamlined through coordinating directorship, adding that when she got to Lagos, food regulation was only in Lagos but now decentralised for ease of doing business.
Leadership of the agency was also restructured as well as “creation of a disciplined and motivated workforce.”
She added that the agency plans on establishing desk offices across the 774 local government areas in the country.
“We have a plan to have NAFDAC desk offices in 774 local governments. What we’ve limited it to is to have at least three NAFDAC desks senatorial districts,” she said.
Others include ensuring compliance with statutory requirements at the various airports, seaports and land borders, and ensuring effective and efficient control at these channels.
