By Ijendu Iheaka
The
National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control,(NAFDAC) Abia state
office has arrested four men for complicity in faking and revalidating expired
food beverages in Aba.
The Abia State Coordinator of
NAFDAC, Mr Olisa Okeke, who revealed this in his office on Tuesday during an
interview with the our reporter in Aba said it was dangerous to put a new expiry date to a product after the original date had expired.
He said that the arrests were made
by a joint Enforcement Team from Lagos and Abia office led by Mr Emeka
Onwuasoanya who swooped in on the fakers at the Eziukwu market on Monday and
arrested the hoodlums.
Okeke said that some other fakers of
food beverage at the market who were caught by NAFDAC fought back to stop
the arrest, but the armed policemen over powered them and led the four away.
He further said that the suspects
later attempted to escape from the boot of a vehicle conveying them to the
Police station but were repelled by policemen who began shooting sporadically.
The Coordinator said that the men
were caught revalidating expired Orijin products in cans and Lucozade Sport
drink while faking malt drinks and dairy products at the time of the arrests.
He said that the men were on their
way to Lagos for further investigation and prosecution.
Okeke noted that NAFDAC was devising
new means of tackling the menace of the fakers at the Eziukwu market since the
operators seem to have sworn to continue in their evil actions.
“There is no type of faking of food
beverages that the miscreants at the Eziukwu market also known as Cemetery
market do not engage in.
“That market is a haven for faking
of products especially food beverages in Aba. They also have person who are
specialists in revalidating expired food beverages but we are making serious
efforts to sanitize the market.
“I cannot reveal all our strategy
here but we are confident that our actions will yield the desired results in a
short time”, Okeke said.
The state Coordinator said that his
men confiscated about 144 bottles of expired Lucozade Sport drink and 29
cartons of expired Orijin products in cans which were being re-validated .
About four weeks ago, the dealers in
fake alcoholic drinks at the Eziukwu market assaulted NAFDAC staff during a
raid of the market.
They also injured two NAFDAC staff
on the shoulder and head with stones and also broke a NAFDAC operations vehicle
windshield used during the operation.
No comments:
Post a Comment