NAFDAC D-G warns staff against bribery, corruption

 The acting Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration And Control, NAFDAC, Mrs Yetunde Oni, yesterday warned staff of the agency to maintain the highest level of discipline by shunning bribery and corruption which she said had stagnated growth in the country.

Oni spoke at a sensitization workshop on anti-corruption, SERVICOM and gender disparity for employees of the agency in the Southeast geopolitical zone as well as Legal and Food Safety and Applied Nutrition departments of the agency. The zone consists of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States.

The NAFDAC boss was represented on the occasion by the Director, Special Duties, NAFDAC, Dr Abubakar Jimoh.

According to her, the agency would continue to ensure that any incident of corrupt practice in the agency was promptly dealt with and asked them to ensure high level of compliance with anti-corruption guidelines to avoid trouble.

“We expect that the participants will work out with all that they have learnt with a view to improving all the services within the system as well as removing all forms of corrupt practices and deliver, optimally to ensure safety and health of the nation,” she added.

Also, the Head of Department, Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Department of ICPC, Mr. Akeem Lawal, said in his own lecture that morality was important in all facets of the activities of NAFDAC staff, even as he urged them to display very high level of intelligence, competence and professionalism in the field.

In her welcome remarks on the occasion, a senior staff from the Reform Unit of the agency, Mrs. Joan Abaagu, said that corruption had become a cancerous growth in many facets of the nation’s life, stressing that NAFDAC had since embraced the Federal Government’s anti-corruption crusade.

Abaagu said that the workshop was aimed at warning staff over corrupt tendencies which could compromise NAFDAC in its fight against fake and counterfeit drugs.

Meanwhile, other issues discussed included “ethics and compliance in workplace, Elements and Gamut of investigation and freedom of information as a weapon for combating corruption in the society.”

He said that the agency had developed a blue-print to combat the sale of fake drugs, especially the anti-malaria drugs by the use of what is called “scratch and text the pin number to confirm” their originalities.