For more than 31 days now, Nigeria’s apex food regulatory agency, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control(NAFDAC) has remained shut down over staff’s welfare strike.
This implies that the agency have been unable to carry out its mandate of controlling and ascertaining the safety and wholesomeness of food imported through the seaports, airports and land borders.
Expert and Economic analyst, CEO, Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise(CPPE), Dr Muda Yusuf in a chat with Nigerian Newssphere on the development on Sunday said this poses danger to public health of Nigerians and disruptive of economic activities that require approvals and certification by NAFDAC.
According to him, “The development is quite worrisome. It increases the vulnerability of the country to importation and production of fake and substandard drugs and food products.
“This has very dire consequences for the health of the citizens. It is also very disruptive of economic activities that require approvals and certification by NAFDAC.
“We should appeal very strongly to the government to urgently intervene to bring an end to the industrial action. NAFDAC is a very strategic institution and we should not allow this situation to continue”, he stated.
Recall that on Wednesday, 22nd June, 2022, workers under the aegis, Members of the Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria(MHWUN) embarked on a strike to press home major demands bordering on welfare.
Earlier the union’s Secretary, Mr Ayodeji Adetoboye, disclosed that the union had proceeded on an indefinite strike action until all its demands are met after an emergency meeting with the Federal Area Council, Lagos and NAFDAC Branch of MHWUN.
According to him, some of the demands, are that ‘‘The congress frowned at the prolonged inaction on the payment of promotion arrears for 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021; the congress agreed that action is long overdue as all measures to resolve the matter has not received management cooperation.
“The issue of additional allowances was discussed and the members of congress rejected the continued delay in the approval by National Salaries Income and Wages Commission. It was noted that since the reduction of NAFDAC salary in year 2013 all efforts to resolve the issue to ameliorate the suffering of staff members have ended on the table of NSIWC.
“The congress raised concerns on the issue of GMP inspection and GMP training that has been hijacked by some microscopic few. Members of congress were unanimous in rebuking management on the delay of the severance allowance and call for an immediate action to save these poor retirees.
“The congress frowned at the recent reversal of the skipping by management as evident in the invitation for promotion during the last promotion exercise. The congress demands immediate reversal to status quo.”
Meanwhile, contrary to NAFDAC Resident Media Consultant, Sayo Akintola comment that the strike would be short-lived, however the strike has lasted for a month now at the detriment of Nigeria’s food safety.
He earlier stated, “NAFDAC does not owe salary. To the best of my knowledge, as part of what they are demanding as of the last time this issue came up, was allowances, so it’s not salary.
“I can’t really say why it has not been paid but you know in an organisation as big as NAFDAC, there is usually a process so probably there is a process it has to go through but I know the last time the issue came up, they actually paid everything and that was why the whole thing died down then and they continued with negotiation with some other issues,” he said.
Newssphere gathered that efforts to end the strike by the DG NAFDAC, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye and the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Health, Mahmuda Mamman was unproductive.