The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has charged stakeholders in the cosmetics and condiments distribution channel in the country to ensure that only wholesome products were on sale.

This is as the agency donated more than 100 pieces of chairs each to the five southeast state secretariats of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

The Acting Director General of NAFDAC, Mrs. Yetunde Oni gave the charge during one day sensitisation workshop in partnership with Christable Consultants for members of the Association of Cosmetics and Condiments Dealers, held in Onitsha, Anambra State.

Represented by the southeast Zonal Coordinator of NAFDAC, Pharm. Fori Tatama, Oni said members of the association were crucial to the actualisation of sanity with various NAFDAC sensitisation programmes were made to achieve in the fight against fake and substandard products in the country.

The workshop tagged “Health and Hazard Implication of Fake and Substandard Products”, according ti she said it could not have come at a better time than now as regard the importance of condiments in our daily living especially as it concerned the human body.

The Acting DG stressed that most listed but unregistered products normally found their ways to the shops and markets in the country and called for a stop to such illegalities.

In his remark, Anambra State Coordinator of NAFDAC, Dr. Christiana Esenwa warned the participants of the consequences of dealing on counterfeit products, saying that the Agency has reviewed its law with a view to making the penalties stiffer to ensure that the business of fake and substandard products came to an end in the country.

He said in the new draft bill, NAFDAC proposed life sentence, confiscation of assets of offenders and use of the proceeds to compensate victims, stressing that the only way to avoid it is by trading on genuine products.

In her speech, the Managing Director of Christable Consultants, Mrs. Christable Okoye, commended NAFDAC on its consistent fight against unwholesome products and urged the participants to join the fight, stressing that the job of combating counterfeit should be for all while she enjoined them to report fake to the agency.

The chairman of the Cosmetics and Condiments Dealers Association, Onitsha branch, Mr. Nonso Ihejiagwu pledged to partner NAFDAC to ensure that the agency’s regulations are strictly observed.

Meanwhile, the agency has disclosed that the donation of chairs state secretariat of National Youth Service Corps is part of its corporate social responsibility to the NYSC due to its strategic grass root mobilisation.

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