The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration
and Control (NAFDAC) has described as false, reports that the e-certification
it initiated last year as part of Federal Government port reforms was not
responsible for cargo congestion in the nation’s seaports.
In a statement made available to our source recently,
the Prof. Christiana Mojisola Adeyeye, Director-General, NAFDAC, said the
claims were completely untrue, baseless and a bid to mislead the general
public on the clearance of products at the various seaports.
Adeyeye said, “As part of ongoing modernisation
reforms by the federal government at the ports, NAFDAC has assiduously worked
towards the automation and digitisation of NAFDAC processes and licenses
respectively. This has resulted in the development and deployment of NAFDAC
e-licenses for utilisation in the clearance of NAFDAC regulated products.
or to the deployment of the e-license on September
9, 2019, NAFDAC had held sensitisation workshops for importers and Authorised
Dealer Banks (ADBs) in 2018.
“This was to prepare importers of NAFDAC regulated
products on the need to digitise 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
(FGSWT) 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 utilising unapproved licenses could not process their Form Ms.”
She said it was 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,
adding that Form M cannot be validly opened without having a valid license from
the agency regulating the product.
She said, “Those in this predicament have been
violating this import procedure for years and they are now caught up because
of this integration. It is therefore, misleading, deceptive and baseless for
any importer or agent alluding the congestion at the ports to the
e-certification processes of NAFDAC.
“Indeed, this is a means of perpetrating evil and
attempt to continuing in dirty and unscrupulous procedures in clearance of
regulated products. Their attempts can be considered as frustrating trade
facilitation.”
The NAFDAC boss said any compliant importer of
NAFDAC regulated products having approved NAFDAC e-licenses and has followed
the approved Federal Ministry of Finance Import Guidelines, Procedures and
Documentation requirements under the Destination Inspection Scheme will not
complain about NAFDAC’s Introduction of e-licenses.
NAFDAC was a responsible regulatory agency
determined to facilitate trade and comply with the federal government’s reform
agenda for the various ports, she explained.
