By Time Nigeria
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), said that European Union (EU) rejected 24 exported food products from Nigeria in 2016 for not meeting international market’s standards.
This was disclosed on Monday by NAFDAC Director, Special Duties, Dr Abubakar Jimoh while speaking with the Journalists in Abuja.
According to Jimoh, the five major products are groundnut, palm oil, sesame seed and beans that were illegally exported to the EU, noted that from the information made available to the Agency, groundnut was rejected because it contained aflatoxin, which made it quality substandard.
Explaining further, Jimoh added that, “The exported palm oil did not scale through the EU’s test also because it contained a coloring agent that was carcinogenic.”
He noted that Beans was banned by EU sometime ago but it was illegally exported to European countries. “Beans was initially banned for one year, when EU was not satisfied with our exported beans in terms of quality assurance, it extended the ban by another two years, which expires next year.
“NAFDAC and other regulatory agencies of the government are working round the clock to ensure that when the ban is lifted, we can then begin to export more agricultural products to EU,”
Director Special Duties maintained that most of the products that were smuggled out were not certified by the agency and the Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Services at the ports.