By Aderogba George
Abuja: The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) says it no longer uses consultants in dealing with the public, vowing to prosecute impersonators.
The agency also urged its prospective customers and Nigerians to be cautious of those who may want to act as the agency’s consultants, warning impostors to desist from such acts or face the wrath of the law.
Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, the NAFDAC Director General, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in an interview on Tuesday that information about people who posed as the agency’s consultants had reached her.
Adeyeye said that if at all the agency had done that in the past years, it no longer
engaged the services of consultants to carry out its functions.
She explained that “there are still people posing as consultants for NAFDAC. Before I joined the agency, maybe few weeks before my resumption in late 2017, there were complaints by customers on consultants and I put them as citizens reports.
“What stood out among the complaints was the issue of consultants in NAFDAC, I didn’t understand what that meant much until I got down to business, and upon enquiry, they told me that NAFDAC consultants created problems of moving business ahead.
“They told me there had been a lot of compromise for people seeking help to process their applications, and in early 2018, I cancelled the issue of consultancy.
“However, there are people still posing as NAFDAC consultants as I speak now, but they are not agency staff.
“I was told that they register a Sim card and attach the name to NAFDAC consultants, they are impersonating our staff and charge people exorbitant fees for registration, our fee for registration is quite low.”
She, therefore, advised Nigerians not to use consultants for any of their dealings with NAFDAC, adding that most of the agency’s information were online.
Adeyeye said that the agency was ready to go after those impostors, provided there were concrete evidence to pursue the matter and pleaded with Nigerians to always keep documentary records in this regard.
The director general said that the agency would not hesitate to punish any of its staff involved in illegal acts. (NAN)
Lawal Abdullahi-Jubril
Mass Communication Budding Expert
