PSN urges NAFDAC to desist from undue monitoring, control
The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) has urged the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to desist from its unending excesses, which involve intimidation, undue monitoring and control.
The chairman of PSN, Gbolagade Iyiola said in a statement that, NAFDAC should have a rethink about its propensity to turn pharmacy practice to a major template of internally generated revenue through its imposition of unending taxes and tariffs on players in the value chain of the pharmaceutical sector.
According to the statement, NAFDAC has taken up the challenge of continuing the unholy attempt to oversee the certification of pharmaceutical premises engaged in the wholesale and distribution of medicines in Nigeria.
“It is this grab-all attitude by NAFDAC that has encouraged some other regulators in the Nigerian space to imagine there is more money than common sense in the pharmaceutical sector, which was why they wanted a share of the booty in the pharmaceutical world in the recent past.
“It is also an irony that NAFDAC inspectors have been invading retail pharmacy out.
“NAFDAC has also insisted on continuing its agenda of forcing importers to pay as high as N4.2 million per foreign manufacturer facility for GMP clearance when the reality is that India, which is the biggest exporter of drugs to Nigeria, has banned exports of pharmaceuticals to Nigeria because of the peculiar challenge of COVID-19,” the statement said.
The management team of NAFDAC, led by its director-general, has frustrated all entreaties to dialogue on this particular subject-matter, which is potentially detrimental to the availability of life-saving drugs for Nigerians.
The attempts by NAFDAC to inspect wholesalers and distributors of drugs and certify for meeting Good Storage and Distribution Practice (GSDP), are matters bordering directly on pharmacy practice, which remains the exclusive jurisdiction of the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN).
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