Over 70% Of Food Exported By Nigeria Are Rejected – NAFDAC

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) revealed that more than 70% of Nigerian food exports are rejected abroad.

Mojisola Adeyeye, the agency’s director-general, stated this during the ceremonial commissioning of the new NAFDAC office complex at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, saying the problem was inflicting massive financial losses to exporters and the country as a whole.

According to her, if collaboration between NAFDAC and other government agencies at the ports is increased, the occurrence of food export rejection by other countries may soon become a thing of the past.

Adeyeye stated that NAFDAC, in collaboration with port agencies, would guarantee that commodities being exported are of sufficient quality and fit the regulatory standards of the importing countries before they are 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 went on to say that the duty to protect the populace’s health and the quality of imports into a country like Nigeria, which is “overwhelmingly dependent” on importation, cannot be fulfilled “without the effective presence of NAFDAC at the ports and land borders.”

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

She also stated that NAFDAC cannot do much in terms of investigation and enforcement without the assistance of the police.

“We have over 80 policemen with us in NAFDAC. They help us a lot when we are doing raids or investigations as the case may be”