Making this request yesterday, the Kano state branch chairman of the Association, Bala Maikudi told newsmen that part of their challenges is, “over-regulation of practice, adding that apart from the traditional Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria (PCN) and National Agency for Food Drug Administration Council (NAFDAC), that other agencies like Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Labour and Productivity perform the same regulatory function over their operations in the country.
“These agencies are always knocking at our doors telling us that they are there to supervise us, our machinery or factory lay out. This is something they ought to have done before the Council granted us license. “
He said they all passed through rigorous process of inspection and licensing by the PCN and by NAFDAC. “So we believe additional supervision by these agencies is very unnecessary. As we are being regulated by PCN and NAFDAC, I believe that Ministry of Environment ought to regulate factories like tanneries, textile factories and other factories that produce toxic materials, not industries like us producing medicine.” He alleged that some of the agencies were only interested in revenue generation and not the practice itself.
“Some may even be referring you to consultants, who will be charging you exorbitant amount of money. We always want to be law-abiding citizens. We find it difficult now to run our businesses, because of erratic power supply and the problem of insecurity, which causes us another problem in our sales. People from other neighbouring countries find it very difficult to come and buy our products, “ Maikudi said.
