National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) today January 6, sealed a Chinese supermarket for allegedly selling goods labelled in Chinese language without its proper notification.
Speaking with newsmen after the exercise, NAFDAC’s Director of Investigation and Enforcement, Shaba Mohammed, said that the agency got ‘credible information’ about the supermarket situated at Azba Mall, 2 Durban Street, Wuse 2, Abuja.
According to Mohammed, the intel received indicated that all the items being sold at the supermarket were labelled in Chinese language, a situation which, he said, violated NAFDAC regulations.
Mohammed, also the Chairman, Federal Task Force on Counterfeit, Fake Drugs and Unwholesome Processed Foods with the agency, said upon getting the information, NAFDAC quickly swung into action to find out the situation of things.
He said that the agency would carry out investigation on why the over 90 per cent of the goods in the supermarket were labelled in foreign language and how they got into the country.
The director also said that some of the affected goods had expired and that they were still on the supermarket’s shelves.
“The supermarket was sealed for violating NAFDAC regulations; investigation will surely go on about this supermarket; we will also need to go to its warehouse in order to stop them from selling some products. The whole information about this supermarket just go to us; if we had know the information from the beginning, we would have taken regulatory action we just took against it now.
Selling items in foreign language in a country is a violation of our law; if you must sell anything either in Arabic, Chinese and French, you must have English translation of it.
More than 90 per cent of the goods sold in the supermarket are in Chinese language. You might find some Nigerians patronising the supermarket; they should be able to read about some of the items on the shelves.
Some of these items have also expired. Even if they are giving global listing to import, they ought to be in English language. This supermarket cannot present to NAFDAC a document through which the items were approved in foreign language. This is not acceptable and that is why we have to seal the supermarket; we will invite the owner for further investigation before we can conclude on the case,” he said
The director said that if the supermarket was found culpable of violating NAFDAC regulations, punishable action would be taken against it.
“It is not every case we charge to court; we will take regulatory action against the supermarket, which may be an administrative action.
Before any certification is given by NAFDAC, it would have visited the site/shop for goods storage and distribution practice.
NAFDAC, upon its visit, will ensure that the facilities are in accordance with NAFDAC regulations,” he said.
Mohammed also stated that the supermarket might have bypassed NAFDAC in the process of bringing some of the goods into the country.
“NAFDAC will not see all these items at the port with every description in foreign language and allow them in; they would have been intercepted immediately,” he said.