Percy Onyeka
The National Agency for Foods and Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has started the sealing of production lines of sachet alcoholic drinks and those in bottles below 200 ml in beverage companies.
The team from NAFDAC, led by Mr. Adeniran Kazeem, which swooped on beverage firms in the Sango-Ota area of Ogun State, sealed the production lines in companies such as Shash Industries Limited located in Iyesi-Ota, Nigerian Distilleries Limited, and Intercontinental Distilleries Limited, among others.
Speaking on what led to the operations, Kazeem said the enforcement team went out in line with the agreement reached with distillers and blenders that such products should no longer be produced or imported again.
“There was a committee of the Federal Ministry of Health and NAFDAC on one hand, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), and the industry represented by the Association of Food, Beverages, and Tobacco Employers (AFBTE) and the Distillers and Blenders Association of Nigeria (DIBAN) in December 2018. The committee agreed that such items should no longer be produced or imported as of December 31, 2023.
“The five-year period of grace is to allow the manufacturers to dispose of whatever they still had in stock. NAFDAC has since stopped approving the production or importation of such items by anyone in this country.
“We are surprised that the companies are still producing these items. The main reason is because they find it easy to sell such, as they are more affordable than other sizes. However, they are not mindful of the negative effects of such on society as a whole.
“It leads to abuse of alcohol because young children and even pupils in elementary schools are drinking such items, and it is affecting them. Do we want to turn our society into one of drunks? After five years of grace, we expect the firms to have diversified into other things and save the country from societal and moral decadence,” he stated.
The team took inventory of the items found in those companies, and Kazeem said they would be evacuated and destroyed.
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