Business
Synergy between NAFDAC, other govt agencies will reduce rejection of food exports from Nigeria – Prof Mojisola Adeyeye
By Seun Ibiyemi
The incidence of rejection of food exports from Nigeria in some European countries and the United States of America may soon become a thing of the past if collaboration between the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control NAFDAC and other government agencies at the ports is strengthened.
The Director General, NAFDAC, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, made the assertion at the official commissioning of the New NAFDAC Office complex for the Murtala Muhammed International Airport/NAHCO, Lagos where she lamented that over 70 per cent of food exports from Nigeria are rejected abroad with huge financial losses to the exporters and the country at large.
A statement by the Resident Media Consultant to NAFDAC, Sayo Akintola, on Sunday, quoted the DG as saying that the deplorable state of export trade facilitation for regulated products leaving the country has continued to be a serious cause for concern for her Agency, adding that a trip to NAFDAC Export warehouses within the international airport will explain unequivocally the major reason for the continuous rejection of Nigerian exports abroad.
She, however, noted that the Agency is responding to this great challenge by initiating a collaborative adventure with the government agencies at the Ports towards ensuring that goods are of requisite quality and meet the regulatory requirements of the importing countries and destinations before such are even packaged and hauled to the ports for shipment.
According to her, this raises the need for a more enhanced regulation of export – packaging, pre-shipment testing and certification to provide some quality assurance and to minimize rejects.
To save national reputation in the international commerce, Prof Adeyeye called on all stakeholders in the export trade to see this as a call to duty and collaborate with NAFDAC for the sake of country and our collective future.
“The mandate to safeguard the health of the populace through ensuring that food, medicines, cosmetics, medical devices, chemicals, and packaged water are safe, efficacious and of the right quality in an economy that is overwhelmingly dependent on importation of the bulk of its finished products and raw materials could never have been actualised without effective presence of NAFDAC at the ports and land borders,” she said.
She recalled that this informed “our push through the resilience of the past Director, Prof Samson Adebayo on assumption of duties, for the immediate return of NAFDAC to the ports that eventually happened in May 2018,” stressing that “with gratitude for the approval of the President and the various arms of the Government, the results of our presence at the ports are available for everyone to see.”
She, however, commended the Nigeria Customs Service for the symbiotic relationship that exists between its management and the Agency, saying “without customs, we will not be able to do a lot of what we have been able to do.”
“The collaboration between Customs and NAFDAC is huge. NAFDAC is a complex organisation. We are scientific. We are police and we work with DSS. We work with Interpol and FBI because of the few stakeholders that are unscrupulous.
“NAFDAC collaborates with Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Services, to ensure that due diligence is done because 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).”
“Without the police we 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.”
In pursuit of its mandate, she further explained that the Agency has embarked on the optimisation and customisation of its processes, stating that the Ports Inspection Data-Capture and Risk Management System (PIDCARMS) is presently deployed in all of the nation’s ports and land borders to automatically capture and process data for imported regulated products from the Nigeria Customs Information System (NICIS).
The DG said the Agency is also working assiduously with relevant stakeholders towards implementation of Traceability for pharmaceuticals in Nigeria, recalling that a Traceability Pilot was conducted successfully for COVID-19 Vaccines distribution and a scale-up is being done as soon as feasible, for medicines and other regulated products.
“The Traceability Information System was developed from PIDCARMS, which underscores the integrative system of NAFDAC.
“These efforts will further boost our regulatory oversight in monitoring the importation and distribution of medicines to ensure that spurious, substandard, and falsified (fake and counterfeit) products are minimized and are eventually blocked out from our supply chain.”
“Similarly, our Post-marketing Surveillance initiatives that involve the Ports Inspection Directorate are gaining gl bal recognition, and we intend to do much more for our nation, especially for future generations,” she said.
She stated that the Agency has extended the frontiers of the fight against substandard products through the procurement of more Truscan devices to further boost on-spot checks for quality of products at the ports, shops, market spaces and anywhere else.
According to Prof. Adeyeye, NAFDAC as a customer-focused and Agency minded organization under her leadership has “steadily engaged in improving service delivery in the course of carrying out our mandate as enshrined in the NAFDAC Act Cap N1 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN) 2004, which empowers us among others, to regulate and control the manufacture, importation, exportation, distribution, advertisement, sale and use of food, drugs, cosmetics, chemicals, medical devices and packaged water (known as regulated products).”
She said these efforts have paid off as NAFDAC has recently been recognised as a world class regulator, with the conferment of the WHO ML3 Status and with continuous improvement of our processes and procedures progressing towards becoming a WHO Listed regulatory Authority (WLA) status to the satisfaction of our customers.
In a bid to deliver on its mandate in spite of the various challenges, she said “we have spent the last few years of my first tenure in the onerous task of building new and upgrading obsolete infrastructure to make them befit to our status, and to provide a safe and comfortable working environment for our staff for maximum output.”
The NAHCO Office Complex, according to Prof. Adeyeye, is one of the two facilities commissioned same day as part of her efforts to position the Agency as a global regulator that is fully equipped to undertake its regulatory oversight in compliance with Global best practices.
She had earlier in the day commissioned the Ogun State NAFDAC office complex in Abeokuta with pomp and ceremony. Seven NAFDAC state office complexes have been completed by the DG across the country in the last five years while many others are at different stages of completion.
The NAHCO Complex presently houses fully equipped and befitting Office Spaces for staff, some of whom run a 24-hour surveillance service, a Press/Conference room that can sit forty persons, a temporary mini-warehouse equipped with temperature-sensitive storage facility, as well as light-duty vehicular equipment for safely moving items till such are ready for release or seizure for destruction.
“My heart broke one day in early 2018 when our former director of Port Inspection Directorate sent me a picture of our staff at the Apapa port working from inside their car with a big umbrella because it was raining so that clients can come in and take care of their business. I was shocked,” she said, stressing that “with this monumental edifice with maximum comfort and tools, all that has become a thing of the past for our staff.”
The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Mr. Ola Olukoyede has disclosed that public corruption is the bane of development in Nigeria.
He made this disclosure in Abuja on Tuesday, July 2, 2024 while receiving the management team of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, led by its Chairman, Mohammed Bello Shehu who came on a courtesy visit to the Commission.
According to Olukoyede, public corruption ranks as the biggest cause of corruption in Nigeria. He pointed out that if public corruption was taken out of the polity, the country would fare better than many countries of the world.
“A situation where somebody would hold a public office or position of trust for years and you call him to account and he says No, he would not account, is not acceptable,” he said.
He stressed that transparency and accountability should be embedded in both the public and private sectors for optimal development of the country.
He decried the magnitude of stealing by corrupt elements in the country, especially stealing of unspent allocation in government agencies.
“When I look at some case files and see the humongous amount of money stolen, I wonder how we are still surviving. If you see some case files you will weep.
“The way they move unspent budget allocation to private accounts in commercial banks before midnight at the end of a budget circle, you will wonder what kind of spirit drives us as Nigerians,” he said.
While noting that corruption posed a huge challenge to the country, Olukoyede expressed optimism that the prevention mechanisms of his leadership would ensure that the Commission stays ahead of the devices of the corrupt to ensure that Nigerians have good governance experiences. He insisted that the preventive framework of tackling corruption offers more prospects of results and impact. To this end, the EFCC now has a Department of Fraud Risk and Assessment and Control.
The EFCC boss also described corruption in the country as systemic and entrenched, pointing out that the nation would fare better with improved systems of doing things.
“Let’s look at our system of revenue generation. It is a system that allows leakages in mobilisation and appropriation of funds. If we don’t look at the system, we will continue to chase shadows. In this direction, we are not just going to investigate and recover; what we have decided to do in the EFCC is Policy Review.
“If we can block some of these leakages and have a 50 per cent of capital project execution in Nigeria, the country would be fine”, he said.
While assuring RMAFC of enhanced EFCC collaboration, Olukoyede tasked the delegation to continue to support President Bola Tinubu’s efforts geared towards repositioning the country.
“The President relies on you and me and all the people he has put in a position of trust and responsibility for success,” he said.
Earlier in his address, Shehu lauded the longstanding collaboration between RMAFC and the EFCC and stated that the visit was motivated by the need to explore more areas of collaboration between the two agencies of government, especially in the direction of recovery of unremitted or lost revenues of government.
“It is important to bring to the fore that the collaboration between RMAFC and EFCC is crucial in addressing the challenges of unremitted revenue to the Federation Account. On this note, we are calling on EFCC for more collaboration, not only in the area of enforcement but also intelligence gathering and data sharing as regards government revenue from any source.”
He also called on the EFCC to further assist his Commission in the area of capacity building of its staff on revenue monitoring.
Business
Adelabu woos investors to make additional investments to fast-track energy transition targets
…Says Development banks have leveraged over $1bn in renewable energy
By Matthew Denis, Abuja
In a bid to enhance electricity supply and distribution across the country, the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu has wooed investors to make additional investments to grow Nigeria’s energy sector and achieve the targets for the nation’s energy transition targets.
Speaking at the ongoing significant Nigeria Oil and Gas Conference in Abuja, the Minister noted that Nigeria continues to embark on an extraordinary journey towards net zero carbon emissions, it is crucial to ensure that a more just, affordable, and sustainable energy system is adopted to address the industry’s most pressing challenges and unlock limitless potential in achieving energy security and a secure, sustainable, and equitable energy transition for Nigeria.
He stressed that “the power sector in Nigeria consumes the largest share of the country’s domestic gas supply. I am here to advocate for increased investment in Nigeria’s gas development to unlock the full potential of our power sector and achieve the Nigeria Energy Transition Plan.”
“The domestic gas-power market accounts for 60 percent (approx. 700 MMSCF Daily) of the total domestic gas supply. This gas quantity currently sustains Nigeria’s 4GW average grid generation capacity.
“In line with the Nigeria Energy Transition Plan vision 30:30, which seeks to achieve 30GW by the year 2030, our energy mix is projected to be 70% (or 21GW) thermal source (most likely gas considering the country’s gas potential) and 30% (or 9GW) renewable source.
“The power sector would require over five times what the industry currently utilises from the domestic gas market to achieve our 70% thermal energy target with gas-powered generation.
“Additional investments would be needed to increase the country’s gas production to achieve this level of gas supply to the power sector without compromising the export obligations. To this end, I call on the investors here today to strongly consider the investment in the further development of gas production in the country, especially our abundant unexploited Non-Associated Gas reserves,” he advocated.
Speaking further, Adelabu enumerated the Government’s commitment to ensure liquidity in the Nigerian power sector.
“To briefly spotlight the Federal Government of Nigeria’s recognition of the need for adequate liquidity in the Nigerian power sector to catalyse the much-needed investments across the value chain.
“The government recently introduced a cost-reflective tariff for the sector’s most served grid-tied customer segment. In addition, presidential approval was granted to resolve the power sector obligations to defray legacy debts to generation and gas companies.
“These actions speak to the government’s commitment to allowing efficient gas supply for the Nigerian power sector and ensuring there’s a clear line of sight for investors to recoup their investments in the country. I am confident that the Federal Government of Nigeria is committed to ensuring a viable and bankable power sector, and we are convinced that the industry is investment-ready,” he explained.
“To achieve our 30 percent Renewable Energy target, I urge you to consider the significant benefits of investing in renewable energy projects in Nigeria. Our country boasts abundant resources, particularly solar, wind, and hydro energy, providing a remarkable opportunity for sustainable growth. The renewable energy market has grown tremendously in the last decade, with over $1 billion leveraged by Multilateral Development Banks,” the Minister added.
He further emphasised that by channelling investments into these renewable sources, we can effectively meet our carbon emission targets while playing a crucial role in combating climate change.
“As demonstrated by our recently completed $550 million Nigeria Electrification Project, investing in renewable energy helps reduce carbon emissions, enhance energy security, and support economic development.
“Additionally, to complement the NEP, the $750 million DARES project would provide electricity to 2.5 million people in Nigeria by deploying solar home systems and mini-grids. These investments will propel Nigeria toward achieving its desired energy mix and transition targets.
“I reaffirm our unwavering commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2060. I sincerely thank all participants and stakeholders for your continued support and collaboration. Together, we can chart Nigeria’s course toward sustainable energy security and robust economic development,” he said.
…As Sanwo-Olu assures of working relationship
FirstBank of Nigeria has expressed its willingness to partner with the Lagos State Government to develop power projects in the state.
Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Bank, Mr. Olusegun Alebiosu made this known when he led the Executive Management of the Bank to visit the Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Tuesday.
Speaking, Alebiosu said, “Power infrastructure is important, and we know what happens in Lagos is what everybody in Nigeria copies. So, we look forward to the framework that the Lagos State Government will set up.
“We are sure that there are so many people in Lagos who want to provide power. Even if Lagos is not setting up any one on its own, we are sure that there are many private investors that will set up massive power projects that will fit into Lagos, and the cost of production will drop.
“We believe that with that, there would be more employment, tax revenue, and many other things. We believe that not only Lagos State but the entire Nigeria will benefit from those projects.
“There are many special projects the Lagos State Government is doing, and First Bank will continue to support the Lagos State Government to develop the projects.”
In his remarks, the Lagos State Governor on Tuesday said his administration will sustain deep mutually beneficial transformative relationships with financial institutions, particularly the First Bank of Nigeria, to meet the needs and yearnings of the citizens of Lagos.
He said the relationship Lagos State is creating with banks is to enhance and improve the quality of life for Lagos residents, as well as improve the socio-economic situation in the country.
Sanwo-Olu, who congratulated Alebiosu on his new appointment as Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, charged him to create value for shareholders and other stakeholders of the bank.
He said, “Part of the consequences of our position in Lagos State is that we are home to many people. And since we are the commercial, economic, and financial nerve centre of our country, there will always be a need for the Lagos State Government to be pulled here and there by different stakeholders.
“We have a special space for First Bank because we have identified relationships that have been mutually beneficial. We have had banking relationships over the years, and both the state government and your institution have seen value created. We have seen extreme economic movement.
“We are building deep, mutually beneficial, transformative relationships. We will continue to nurture the relationship. We will continue to give it its rightful place, and we will continue to ensure that, as fair as we can be, First Bank truly receives a decent amount of our business.
“We have enjoyed a very cordial and forward-looking relationship with First Bank, and we believe that during your (Alebiosu) tenure, the relationship will be further enhanced and improved upon.”
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