The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, has said that she inherited a total debt of N3.2 billion when she assumed office about four years ago.
Adeyeye, who said the debt was paid back barely a year after she took over, noted she took some excruciating cost-saving measures which earned her a lot of funny appellations by NAFDAC staff such as “we can save N1m from this N5m request to buy a vehicle” amongst others.
She said: “The money we saved is the money we use for what we need and not what we want.
“When we spend money for wants the nation suffers the consequences. Not just the nation now our staff will suffer the consequences.
“That’s why we started saving money despite the fact that I met N3.2 billion debt. And within one year we paid N3.01billion.”
This is just as the NAFDAC boss commissioned 73 brand new HILUX utility vehicles, saloon cars, and staff buses to enhance the Agency’s operational efficiency.
Prof. Adeyeye said provision of the vehicles would put a permanent end to the hitherto practice whereby clients would bring their vehicles to ferry agency staff to the site for inspection.
According to her, the inspection exercise was compromised when the staff of a regulatory body would have to depend on their clients to transport them to the factory to be inspected.
Prof. Adeyeye, in a statement by the Resident Media Consultant to NAFDAC, Sayo Akintola, on Sunday, explained that 20 Toyota Camry 2021 brand for some directors were commissioned in Abuja, while ten 60 Seater Coaster and Hummer buses were commissioned at the Oshodi office complex of the Agency.
She added that 43 Hilux vans were commissioned at the Investigation and Enforcement Directorate in Apapa to enhance the enforcement, inspection, and regulatory activities of the Agency.
The NAFDAC boss stated that the four Coaster buses and the six Toyota Hiace buses commissioned in Oshodi would serve as staff buses to make life more comfortable for the workers in their day-to-day commuting to and from the office.
Prof Adeyeye further disclosed that NAFDAC is going through its World Health Organization (WHO) audit, noting that it’s being judged on seven regulatory functions or a group of activities.
READ ALSO: NAFDAC to Nigerians: Taking excess antibiotics leads to death
“There is one big area called regulatory inspection. This includes visiting companies to see whether they are compliant with their good manufacturing practices,” she said, stressing that “It’s vehicles that will take our staff there.”
According to her, the regulatory inspection include good distribution practice, as all the distributors that handle NAFDAC regulated products would be visited to see where those products are being kept.
She recalled how the Agency was able to burst a syndicate that brought 30 containers of Tramadol to the country about three years ago through a tip-off by the Presidency.
She said the Ports Inspection officers of the Agency kept vigil for days at the ports before the consignments worth over N2 trillion were apprehended and contents destroyed.
“The containers were labelled for bonded terminals. We wouldn’t have been able to do it. It is vehicles that officers of Inspection Directorate used to keep vigil at these ports,” the NAFDAC boss added.
Adeyeye further explained that the officials of the Investigation and Enforcement Directorate would use the utility vehicles to pursue peddlers of contraband, counterfeited products across the country.
She noted that the new vehicles would be useful for the officials of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Directorate saddled with the responsibility of inspecting food, water and related products to ascertain their wholesomeness for human consumption with clients scattered all over the country.
The Director-General was, therefore, eulogized by NAFDAC officials for taking the “bull by the horn to tackle the perennial problem of lack of utility vehicles to do the regulatory job.”
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