NAFDAC returns to Ports, borders for effective regulation - DG

NaijaAgroNet: 

The Director General of the National Agency for Food andDrug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Professor Christianah Mojisola Adeyeye, has assured Nigerians that the return of the agency to the nation’s ports and borders will enhance the regulation of importation of narcotic drugs and hazardous chemical substances, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This, she also said, would boost up the regulation of hazardous substances identified to be grossly abused and consequently, posing public health and security threats to the country.

A communique issued at the end of the National Chemical Security Training Conference in Abuja and held under the auspices of the Officeof the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and made available to NaijaAgroNet, with the theme “Towards a Secured Importation, Distribution, Storage and Use of Chemicals in Nigeria.”

NAFDAC DG noted that the return to ports and borders will once again, restore NAFDAC’s key responsibility of monitoring imports of controlled drugs and chemical substances which come in various forms, thus requiring expertise to monitor their industry-wide application and use.

The agency commended ONSA, the Chemical Society of Nigeria and other key stakeholders for recognizing NAFDAC as a key player in the national security architecture by this singular act of restoring the presence of NAFDAC officials at all designated Ports of entry and land borders.

She recalled that the laws establishing NAFDAC empowered the agency to statutorily operate at the ports. 

“The clearance of regulated products outside of the current legal framework poses immediate and life threatening risks to the public as unregistered, spurious and falsified products exit the ports without recourse to the agency’s approval for such products to be in the market,” she said.

Prof. Adeyeye further assured members of the public that NAFDAC will continue to contribute its quota to government’s efforts in securing lives and property by ensuring that only quality, safe, efficacious and wholesome regulated products and are consumed by Nigerians and smuggling of chemical weapons, harmful drugs and substances into the country is checked.

 
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D-G urges effective implementation of global anti-rogue fishing treaty

NaijaAgroNet:

The recent entry into force of a ground-breaking international accord on illegal fishing is a welcome development but it now requires "strong and effective implementation", says Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Director-General José Graziano da Silva, reports NaijaAgroNet.  

In his speech at the Our Ocean Conference in the United States capital, Graziano da Silva lauded the signatories of the FAO-brokered Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (PSMA).

Also, da Silva provided United States Secretary of State John Kerry with an update on the status of the treaty, which came into force in June.

"In 2014 only 10 nations had ratified the PSMA," Kerry noted in his conference address. "All of us then decided that we could do better and we did ... because more than 60 nations have now ratified the PSMA and that is critical," he said, urging all other countries to follow suit in adhering to the treaty.

"We need everyone to come onboard, otherwise rogue fishing vessels will continue to find ways to land and introduce their illegal catches into the markets of non-PSMA countries," da Silva said.

He likened adherence to the treaty to the international community's commitment to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), "a situation in which no one can be left behind."

NaijaAgroNet recalls that under the treaty, parties are obliged to implement a number of measures while managing ports under their control, to detect illegal fishing, preventing ill-caught fish from being offloaded and sold, and ensuring that information on unscrupulous vessels is shared globally.

FAO has launched a global programme to support countries with the implementation of the treaty and complimentary instruments, Graziano da Silva said. These include the Voluntary Guidelines on Flag State Performance, which spell out a range of actions that countries can take to ensure that vessels registered under their flags do not conduct illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

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Pix: FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva