Foreign nations reject 70% of exported Nigerian goods – NAFDAC

Foreign nations reject 70% of exported Nigerian goods – NAFDAC

Nigeria suffers huge losses as more than 70 per cent of food exported from the country are rejected abroad.

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) stated this in Lagos.

The agency’s Director-General, Mojisola Adeyeye, revealed this at the official commissioning of the new NAFDAC office complex at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos.

She said the issue was causing huge financial losses to the exporters and the country at large.

She however said the rejection of food exports by other countries would soon become a thing of the past if collaboration between NAFDAC and other government agencies at the ports became strengthened.

Adeyeye said along with the port agencies, NAFDAC would ensure goods being exported are of requisite quality and meet the regulatory requirements of the importing countries before they are even packaged.

“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,” she said.

Adeyeye said the mandate to safeguard the health of the populace and the quality of imports into a nation like Nigeria – which is “overwhelmingly dependent” on importation – could not be actualised “without the effective presence of NAFDAC at the ports and land borders.”

The director-general commended the police and Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) for the symbiotic relationship between its management and the agency.

“Without customs, we will not be able to do a lot of what we have been able to do,” Adeyeye said.