The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has announced the commencement of enforcement of its ban on the production and sale of alcohol in sachets and PET bottles below 200 millilitres.
Mojisola Adeyeye, NAFDAC director-general, disclosed this on Wednesday in Lagos during a media parley organised by the agency.
She explained that the action followed a matching order from the senate, adding that enforcement had already begun.
According to the NAFDAC boss, the decision was taken to protect public health and shield vulnerable groups, particularly children, adolescents and young adults, from the harmful use of alcohol.
She noted that alcoholic beverages packaged in sachets and small containers are widely accessible, inexpensive and easy to conceal, thereby increasing abuse.
“We already started the enforcement to ban alcohol production in sachet and bottles below 200ml, after we received order from the senate to proceed,” Adeyeye said.
“NAFDAC is not against alcohol, but we are against its proliferation of high alcohol content in sachet and small bottles, to prevent children from having easy access to it.”
Adeyeye recalled that sachet alcohol products previously contained between 50 and 90 per cent alcohol concentration, which she described as dangerously excessive.
She said efforts by the agency to compel manufacturers to reduce the alcohol content to 30 per cent were resisted by producers.
“We asked the manufacturers to reduced the content to 30 per cent, they went directly to the ministry to express their displeasure, citing loss of jobs and investment,” she said.
“The then minister of health gave them a five-years period between December 2018 to Jan. 31, 2024, to put their business in place.”
The NAFDAC DG reaffirmed the agency’s resolve to prioritise national health and safeguard children and other vulnerable groups through sustained regulatory enforcement.