The Senate has asked the Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire; Minister of Trade and Investment, Niyi Adebayo, and the Director-General of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration (NAFDAC), Professor Mojisola Adeyeye to appear it in the next two weeks.
The Senate said failure on the part of the Ministers and NAFDAC boss to appear to intimate the Upper Chamber to explain why a policy of 2017 by the Federal Government has not been implemented as well as about the manufacturing, importation, and policy guideline for syringes in Nigeria.
It said the Trade and Investment Minister will likewise appear to explain reasons for why the Backward Integration Policy (BIP), which was validated in 2017, was still on his table and has not been presented to Federal Executive Council for approval.
Chairman, Senate Committee on Health (Secondary and Tertiary), Senator Ibrahim Oloriegbe, APC, Kwara Central, during an Investigative hearing on ‘The need to regulate the manufacturing, importation and use of Syringes and needles to protect the lives and safety of Nigerians as well as the economy of the country’, threatened to issue a warrant of arrest on the Ministers and the Director-General of NAFDAC if they fail to appear April 15.
The Health Committee members who expressed dismay over the failure of the Ministry of Trade and Investment to implement the Backward Integration Policy (BIP) on local production of syringes five years after it was validated, said that for the singular reason why tariff on Imported Syringes and Needles is not implemented, was because imported ones have become cheaper than the locally produced ones.
The Senate decided to summon the Minister when the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry was absent and when the representative of the Trade and Investment Minister, the Director, Chemical and Non-Petrochemical, Janet Nwoke, could not provide answers thrown to her by the Lawmakers.
Oloriegbe, who particularly took a swipe at NAFDAC for licensing companies in India and China to import syringes into the country, said, “You can’t keep licensing agents outside Nigeria to import syringes, while local firms are dying. There is no complexity in the production of syringes.”
He noted that despite the capacity of the local firms to meet the market demands, an estimated over 1 Billion units of syringes and needles were being imported into the country per annum, thereby making the country lose what he described as huge foreign exchange.
The Senate asked NAFDAC to furnish it with the list of companies that have been importing syringes into the country in the last 15 years, the quantity imported as well as evidence of checks on licensed foreign companies and licensing fees.
The Senate however initiated a holistic probe into the state of manufacturing, importation and policy guideline for syringe and Needles in Nigeria.
According to the Senate, because the imported syringe and needles are already used and released, they then endanger the lives, health and safety of Nigerians.
Consequently, the Senate directed its Committee on Health (Secondary and Tertiary) to summon the Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, to provide an explanation on the policy for the procurement and utilization of syringe and needles by federally, state and privately owned hospitals and agencies of the Ministry.
