By Our Correspondent
Director-General of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, has explained that she had moved the agency from insolvency to solvency by paying off its N3.01 billion debt she inherited on assumption of office within one year. Speaking in Abuja during a virtual NAFDAC Staff Recognition Award event and DG’s Annual Message, Mrs. Adeyeye, who said there was total insanity in the agency when she took over as head of NAFDAC, explained that her administration specifically inherited the sum of N2.3 billion.
Recalling the challenges she faced on taking over as NAFDAC's Director-General, she said: “I inherited N2.3 billion debt. There was total insanity. We started working hard to bring sanity into the system.”
According to her, “NAFDAC is now solvent”, adding: “We have moved NAFDAC from insolvency to solvency by paying its debt within one year.”
Speaking on some of the far-reaching innovations put in place by her leadership with a view to repositioning NAFDAC for efficiency, she said the food and drug regulatory body created directorate focus budgeting because according to her, part of Quality Management System (QMS) is to have financial sanity.”
She said: “In compliance with the 2017 Executive Order aimed at enhancing the ease of doing business in Nigeria and in alignment with global benchmarking and the Quality Management System requirements, the agency has digitalized its regulatory process including registration processes to allow its clients to register online”.
According to Prof Adeyeye, “It is a marathon but the openness to change and being proactive and all these pieces are very important in moving forward.
“In addition, the NAFDAC has decentralized the registration of regulated products with the minimal risk associated with them and manufactured by Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises, MSMEs,” she added. The NAFDAC boss further explained that ”since the return of NAFDAC to the port in May 2018, the agency has developed and deployed the Ports Inspection and Data Capture and Risk Management System (PITCAMS), a web-based online application that provides electronic endorsement and inspection reporting in real-time.
Speaking further, she said: “Another achievement is due to our hardworking and able body staffs, it is the establishment of World Health Organisation? (WHO) global benchmarking and Adoption of international best practices”.
“Our goal and impact are that we want to get to maturity level 3 so that Nigeria can manufacture our own vaccine and we are all working on this day by day. I want to thank all the staffs who are responsible for this in one way or the other. I’ve mentioned that we acquired our ISO 9001 in June 2019. It is all of us that took part in this. We are still improving on it.
“We just finished the second year audit a few months ago and we came out in flying colors, but we are not there yet. We will keep improving in other to safeguard the health of our people in Nigeria”.
“I was at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting two days ago and they’ve approved 25 vehicles for us. Those are the vehicles that we bought from the money we saved and it is due to our hardworking staffs, prudent and diligent that led to all the savings that we have achieved which we are now going to use to buy 25 vehicles and we are going to buy more. That is part of our new normal”, the NAFDAC DG stated. (source: nigerian newsbreak). NNL.
