The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), on Monday, sealed a Chinese supermarket for allegedly selling goods labelled in Chinese language without its proper notification.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the supermarket is situated at Azba Mall, 2 Durban Street, Wuse 2, Abuja.
Speaking with journalists after the exercise, NAFDAC Director of Investigation and Enforcement, Shaba Mohammed, said the agency got ‘credible information’ about the supermarket.
Mr Mohammed, who is also the Chairperson, Federal Task Force on Counterfeit, Fake Drugs and Unwholesome Processed Foods with the agency, said items being sold at the supermarket were labelled in Chinese language, thereby violating NAFDAC’s regulations.
He said the agency would investigate why over 90 per cent of the goods in the supermarket were labelled in a foreign language and how they got into the country.
He also said 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,” he said.
“The whole information about this supermarket just got to us; if we had known the information from the beginning, we would have taken regulatory action we just took against it now.”
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Mr Mohammed added that selling items in foreign languages is a violation of the law.
“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,” he said.
“Some of these items have also expired. Even if they are given a global listing to import, they ought to be in the English language. This supermarket cannot present to NAFDAC a document through which the items were approved in foreign language.”
He said the owner of the supermarket will be invited for further investigation before the agency concludes the case.
The director said if the supermarket is found culpable of violating NAFDAC’s 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.”
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Mr Mohammed added that the supermarket might have bypassed the agency in the process of bringing some 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.
NAN
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