Three major assorted raw food warehouses have been shut down in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti capital, by the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).
This is contained in a statement by the NAFDAC State Coordinator, Mrs Stella Dosumu on Friday in Ado-Ekiti.
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Dosumu said the warehouses were closed over varied degrees of infractions, allegedly targeted at short-changing unsuspecting members of the public.
According to her, the closure is in continuation of the NAFDAC Director General’s efforts to rid the society of fake, counterfeit and substandard medicinal and wholesome items in Ekiti.
“The closure took place on Wednesday, March 11, infractions of the agency’s laws.
“The action followed a tip-off by a concerned citizen that illegal re-bagging of rice was being done in some warehouses.
“This led the state coordinator and her team to conduct surveillance on the implicated warehouses to confirm the information.”
Dosumu said the finding revealed that several bails of empty bags of popular local and foreign rice were in the warehouses, while different brands of rice had already been re-bagged.
She said that sewing and sealing machines were also found in the warehouses.
According to her, the managers at the warehouses, refused to disclose the source of the rice that were being re-bagged, hence, the status of the rice cannot be ascertained.
“It is a dangerous trend that is capable of compromising the health of consumers, as well as misleading labelling information.
“In the interim, the bails of empty bags of different brands of rice found in the warehouses were mopped; samples of the re-bagged rice were taken for laboratory analysis, while the warehouses were shutdown.
“This is pending the outcome of the laboratory reports, before further regulatory actions can be determined,’’ she said.
Dosumu, however, reassured the public that the agency would continue to pursue its mandate of safeguarding the health of citizens, by ensuring both drug and food safety in Nigeria.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that this is coming just as the Director General of the agency, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, warned that there was no hiding place for criminals.
Adeyeye described some of the people as ‘merchants of death’ in the country, who had chosen to trade in regulated products, illegally.
(NAN)