The Director General of the Consumer Protection Council (CPC), Babatunde Irukera, and his counterpart at the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Professor Moji Adeyeye, at the weekend agreed to collaborate to fight the menace of counterfeit and adulterated products in the country.
Both organisations’ chief executive officers had extensive discussions on a wide variety of national and citizens’ protection issues when Irukera visited the NAFDAC DG at NAFDAC Headquarters on Friday.
Key subjects of the discussions included mutual collaboration for more robust protection in the food and drugs sector.
Also, they both underscored the urgent need for broad, focused and strategic intervention in the problem of adulteration and counterfeiting.
In particular, Irukera and Adeyeye noted that this problem is a major threat to the key mandate of both organisations because substandard goods not only violate statutory standards; they also endanger lives and erode consumer confidence.
A major outcome of the meeting was a mutual commitment to jointly deploy the assets and resources of their respective agencies to address this menace.
The meeting further identified other opportunities for cooperation and agreed that follow-up meetings and a structure for joint project execution is in the best interest of consumers.
Speaking after the meeting, the DG of CPC thanked his counterpart in NAFDAC for her warm reception and readiness to partner, noting that the cooperative regulatory approach she has adopted and endorsed exemplifies the best possible strategy to secure the country in the food and drug sector.
Irukera expressed confidence that the resolutions reached at the meeting would go a long way in addressing questions of quality and standards in the industry, which will be to the benefit of consumers.
