NAFDAC Moves to Clear Sachet, Bottle Alcoholic Drinks Below 200ml from Markets, Warns Consumers of Sanctions
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has warned that consumers and sellers of alcoholic drinks packaged in sachets and bottles below 200ml could face sanctions as it prepares to commence the second phase of enforcement of the nationwide ban on the products.
The agency said it had completed the first phase of the exercise, which targeted manufacturers, and would soon begin a market-wide operation aimed at removing the banned alcoholic beverages from circulation.
Speaking during a press briefing in Lagos on Wednesday, the Director of Investigation and Enforcement of NAFDAC, Dr Martins Iluyomade, said Nigerians should not mistake the continued presence of some of the products in the market as a sign that the agency had abandoned enforcement.
According to him, NAFDAC has already removed the products from manufacturers and is now investigating how some of the banned alcoholic drinks are still finding their way into the marketplace.
“The enforcement is in phases. Phase one is done, and we are going to start the second phase, which will be removing it from the market.
“We have finished removing the ones from the manufacturers. And this is what has kept us busy. But we don’t know how they get the ones that are in the market. But we’ll find out how”, Iluyomade stated.
The NAFDAC enforcement chief also warned that consumers could be caught in the agency’s enforcement net, noting that the agency’s enabling law empowers it to regulate not only the manufacture, sale and distribution of regulated products, but also their use.
“Let me start warning Nigerians that the law gives us power to regulate not only sales, manufacture, but also use. That word, ‘use’, means that if we catch you taking it, you are also guilty of what we are doing.
“This is a part of our laws that we have not been using. We are going to activate it this period”, he said.
He said the NAFDAC Act (Cap N1, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004) clearly prohibits activities relating to products that have been discontinued, including display for sale, sales, distribution and consumption.
“Our laws are very straightforward. It talks about display for sale. It talks about sales. It talks about distribution. In any of these lines that you are caught, you are on the other side of the law.
“So either you are a consumer, or you are a seller. You will be on the other side of the law. What we have discontinued, what we have said no more, it means so, and it has not changed”, he explained.
Iluyomade urged traders and distributors still holding stocks of alcoholic drinks packaged in sachets and PET bottles below 200ml to take steps to comply with the directive before the next phase of enforcement begins.
“The second phase of enforcement will come. Market people who have invested their money to buy these products should do the needful before we come out for the second phase.
“Nobody should accuse us of economic sabotage, because we have given enough time for people to do what is right”, he warned.
