The House of Representatives Committee on National Agency on Food, Drugs Administration, and Control (NAFDAC), has advised the agency to suspend the enforcement of its recent ban on sale of spirits and alcoholic drinks in sachets and pet bottles.
The committee’s advice was based on the need for the Legislature to conclude its investigation on the matter.
The Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Reginah Akume, who made this remark after a public hearing on ban of the product on Friday, pointed out that there were some required procedures to follow by the agency before the ban on the products.
According to her, there is need to put Access Control Procedures in place to prevent children and youths from consuming the alcoholic contents of the sachet and pet bottles.
The lawmaker promised that the committee would do its best to ensure that the current face-off between NAFDAC and manufacturers would be amicably resolved in a way that is not detrimental to children or public safety.
Earlier in her remarks, Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, said the ban was imposed to protect the health and welfare of children, youths, and other vulnerable groups and was sequel to the joint agreement reached with the manufacturers of the products some years ago.
She recalled that the agency agreed to a five-year moratorium for the manufacturers to phase out alcoholic drinks in sachets and pet bottles in December 2018 in line with a ministerial directive and not a unilateral made by NAFDAC.
Adeyeye said that in spite of the agreement on the ban on alcohol in sachet and pet bottles, it was shocking to NAFDAC that opposition on the ban of the affected products from manufacturers was mounting.
According to her, the agency is not against the production of alcohol drinks but alcohol in sachets and pet bottles to protect youths and children from the consumption due to the health risks.
The Director-General clarified: “The World Health Organisation had a resolution in 2010, in which Nigeria was a co-signatory that each country will have alcohol that is less reachable and less accessible to the youth, and nothing has been done about that until now.
“It is very unfortunate we are where we are now because the children who are used to taking alcohol will also become vulnerable to drug abuse”, the NAFDAC boss stressed.
While noting that as a result of the alcohol in sachets, about 30 per cent of the children in the country now take alcohol casually, Adeyeye maintained that banning the sachet alcohol drinks would not adversely affect the manufacturers as they portended in their campaign against the enforcement of the agency’s ban on the products.
In his contribution at the session, the Director-General of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Mr Segun Ajayi-Kadiri, however, maintained there was no major basic disagreement between the products’ manufacturers and NAFDAC as the association also remained committed to protecting youths and children from alcoholism.
