The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) raided the Sheik Gumi market in Kaduna State, North-Central Nigeria, and seized over 2 million naira in unregistered and expired tomato pastes.
The seizure took place in 16 shops in the market, where 75 cartons of the expired and also unregistered tomato paste of various brands were retrieved.
The Deputy Director, Investigation and Enforcement Directorate of NAFDAC, Kaduna Office, Pharm. Tamanuwa Andrew said the raid at the market was in line with the ban on importation of tomato paste by the Federal Government in 2019.
He explained that, since the ban on the importation on the tin tomato paste, the Agency has been carrying out raid on unregistered and banned tomato paste across markets in the country.
“In September 2022 in Lagos, the Director of Investigation and Enforcement did a press briefing on the raid carried out in the state alone, where open and super markets and shops were raid and over 3000 cartons of unregistered tin tomatoes were confiscated.”
Andrew noted that NAFDAC would continue to discharge and not shy away from its responsibilities of ensuring a healthy nation.
“Since those unpatriotic Nigerians are not willing to stop smuggling those banned items, we are also not willing to stop going after them till we rid off our markets of circulation of such products,” he stressed.
Andrew further said that they would visit other markets to carry out same exercise, noting that they discovered that the markets were flooded with such unregistered and imported tomato paste.
“It is at the detriment of the health of consumers, the nation’s economy and local manufacturers of the products,” he emphasized.
