FDA Cracks Down On Unregistered Imports

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Delese Mimi Darko

EFFECTIVE FEBRUARY 1, 2020, unregistered imported foods, cosmetics and household chemicals will be sampled at the ports and tested before clearance.

Emmanuel Yaw Kwarteng, Head of Division, Import and Export at the Food and Drugs FDA, who disclosed this, was making a presentation during a stakeholder engagement on Wednesday in Tema.

According to him, over 20 per cent of imports regulated by the FDA arrived at the ports unregistered even though there was a requirement of registration ahead of importation in force.

It is because of this that the FDA was bent on strictly enforcing the requirement effective February 1, 2021.

He said efforts to facilitate the registration of regulated products by the FDA had seen the reduction of registration fees between 10 and 20 per cent of the previous fees.

Importers would also be required to initiate the registration process before the consignment was cleared from the port, while also they would further be required to pay the appropriate administrative charges or penalties for importing unregistered products.

Mr. Kwarteng added that “products undergoing renewal of registration with no variations could be detailed at consignee’s warehouse.”

He explained that there were risks associated with the importation of products aforementioned and there was therefore the need to ensure public health and safety, as espoused to by the Public Health Act – Act 851 of 2012.

To control this effectively, Mr. Kwarteng said the authority had decided to keep a database of all FDA regulated personal effects that were brought into the country; adding that importers were expected to submit a comprehensive list of personal effects with accompanying batch codes and date marks.

In a statement read on her behalf, Delese Mimi Darko, CEO of FDA, expressed worry about the situation where the importation of relatively small quantities of European and American brands got into supermarkets across the country, as personal effects of importers.

She intimated that the authority would deal ruthlessly with all such importers who perpetrated such acts.

 

 

 

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