The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) today January 6, sealed a Chinese supermarket for allegedly selling goods labelled in Chinese language without its proper notification.
Speaking with newsmen after the exercise, NAFDAC’s Director of Investigation and Enforcement, Shaba Mohammed, said that the agency got ‘credible information’ about the supermarket situated at Azba Mall, 2 Durban Street, Wuse 2, Abuja. According to Mohammed, the intel received indicated that all the items being sold at the supermarket were labelled in Chinese language, a situation which, he said, violated NAFDAC regulations.
Mohammed, also the Chairman, Federal Task Force on Counterfeit, Fake Drugs and Unwholesome Processed Foods with the agency, said upon getting the information, NAFDAC quickly swung into action to find out the situation of things.
He said that the agency would carry out investigation on why the over 90 per cent of the goods in the supermarket were labelled in foreign language and how they got into the country.
The director also said that some of the affected goods had expired and that they were still on the supermarket’s shelves.
“The supermarket was sealed for violating NAFDAC regulations; investigation will surely go on about this supermarket; we will also need to go to its warehouse in order to stop them from selling some products. The whole information about this supermarket just go to us; if we had know the information from the beginning, we would have taken regulatory action we just took against it now.
Selling items in foreign language in a country is a violation of our law; if you must sell anything either in Arabic, Chinese and French, you must have English translation of it.
More than 90 per cent of the goods sold in the supermarket are in Chinese language. You might find some Nigerians patronising the supermarket; they should be able to read about some of the items on the shelves.
Some of these items have also expired.“ he said