NAFDAC seals three warehouses in Ekiti
NAFDAC
Abdullateef Fowewe
Three major assorted raw food warehouses have been shut down in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti capital, by the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).
This was made known in a statement on Friday, by the NAFDAC State Coordinator, Stella Dosumu.
Dosumu established that the warehouses were closed over varied degrees of infractions, allegedly targeted at short-changing unsuspecting members of the public.
She further stated that the closure is in continuation of the NAFDAC Director General’s efforts to rid the society of fake, counterfeit and substandard medicinal and wholesome items in Ekiti.
The statement reads, “The closure took place on Wednesday, March 11, infractions of the agency’s laws.
“The action followed a tip off by a concerned citizen that illegal re-bagging of rice was being done in some warehouses.
“This led the state coordinator and her team to conduct surveillance on the implicated warehouses to confirm the information.”
The statement further stressed that the finding revealed that several bails of empty bags of popular local and foreign rice were in the warehouses, while different brands of rice had already been re-bagged, noting that sewing and sealing machines were also found in the warehouses.
The managers at the warehouses, refused to disclose the source of the rice that were being re-bagged, hence, the status of the rice cannot be ascertained.
“It is a dangerous trend that is capable of compromising the health of consumers, as well as misleading labelling information.
“In the interim, the bails of empty bags of different brands of rice found in the warehouses were mopped; samples of the re-bagged rice were taken for laboratory analysis, while the warehouses were shutdown.
“This is pending the outcome of the laboratory reports, before further regulatory actions can be determined,” it added.
The anti-drugs agency reassured the public of continuous pursuing of its mandate of safeguarding the health of citizens, by ensuring both drug and food safety in Nigeria.
