By Balogun Mabamije
UGHELLI/Nigeria: As humanity continued to witness increased cases of cancer, high blood pressure and other terrible ailments, the Ughelli North Local Government Primary Health Care Development Agency (PHCDA) has come out hard on fake and expired products dealers in the locality.
The action involved raiding such dealers and placing fines on them.
The fine which ranged from #10,000 to #50,000 was meant, according Mr Abraham Eruvwetahwanre, the head of the Food and Scientific Unit, to serve as a deterrent to others who intended to deal on fake or expired products in the locality, just as he added that the action was backed up with bye-laws of the Ughelli North Local Government Council.
Addressing newsmen, Mr. Eruvwetahwanre said the exercise was carried out sequel to the discovery that most of the dangerous ailments were caused by the intake of food that had expired or fake such as, beverages, drugs, canned food and others.
“Most of the issues we have in the health sector are food related. That is why from our end, we encourage prevention because we discovered that treating and elimination of such ailments are expensive and risky and also affects the society negatively,” he added.
He said such business premises were referred to as regulated premises and the law empowered the agency to enter into any business premises within the hour of 6am to 6pm without due notice to check products and confiscate expired products for destruction with offenders fined while those obstructing the inspection of their products could risk six months imprisonment or fine accordingly to the law.
Eruvwetahwanre disclosed that the Ughelli North Local Government had dully embarked on sensitisation exercise on radio, television and the print media to warn marketers on the danger of selling fake or expired products for consumption, just as he added that secular letters were also distributed since January this year to business premises to inform them of the inspection exercise.
He advised business owners to be conversant with the chef lives of their products and practice, what he termed, “first in and fist out” and not the other way around, just as he told the unsuspecting public to always check expiration date of any product and even the NAFDAC number before purchasing to avoid falling victim of wicked business men or women.
In his contribution, Mr Felix Obaseki, another Food and Scientific Officer, noted that in the cause of going out to inspect products, some persons craftily scrapped or mutilated the expiration date just to continue to sell expired products to the unsuspecting public.
Obaseki further observed that in some cases, the marketers were ignorant of the need to check the expiration date before purchasing, which had made them to fall victim by purchasing goods that would expired in a month time from the date of purchase.
While appealing to government at all levels to continue to sensitise the public on the danger of expired and fake products, Obaseki said the aim of the agency was to make sure that Ughelli North Local Government Area was free from fake and expired products that could pose danger to human health.
