To fight the spread of fake and counterfeit drugs, the Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, has advocated for stiffer penalties for the production and sale of such products, including life imprisonment or death penalty for offenders.
The NAFDAC DG disclosed this during a press conference in Lagos, where she said that NAFDAC had cleared debts totalling about N3.2 billion inherited when she resumed in her present capacity in 2017.
Adeyeye said the inherited liabilities comprised about N1.6 billion in unpaid taxes owed to the government, approximately N700 million owed to staff who travelled for Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) activities, and about N400 million owed to contractors.
“We had N3.2 billion debt that I inherited. N1.6 billion was taxes we didn’t pay to the government. My predecessors didn’t pay the government. About N700 million was to staff that travelled for GMP that they didn’t pay and about N400 million for contractors that were not paid,” she said.
She informed reporters that NAFDAC recorded about 700 official travels in 2017, a trend she stated significantly impacted the agency’s expenses.
“I said, no more travel until we pay our debts. We paid N3.11 billion by November 2018. The other money was fictitious. We didn’t pay that.
“People asked me, why are you paying debts? We don’t pay debts here. I was brought up not to owe, not to be a slave to the lender,” she added.
