National Telescope national telescope newspaper
By Afolagboye Precious |
The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has cautioned against plans by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration Control (NAFDAC) to ban sachet alcoholic drinks.
According to MAN, banning the product will render over 500,000 people jobless thereby increasing the unemployment rate in the country.
The association’s Director General, Segun Ajayi stated this at the 2024 MAN Reporter of the Year Award/Presidential Media luncheon held in Ikeja, Lagos on Tuesday.
According to him, sachet alcoholic drinks are marketing strategies to make them affordable and not meant for children consumption.
He however described NAFDAC’s reason of banning the product to stop children from accessing it as baseless.
He said, “Sachet alcoholic drinks is a marketing strategy; it is a means to reach the market and make it affordable.
“Children are not supposed to have access to it; it was written on it that ‘underage drinking is prohibited, to be sold to adults above or within the age of 18.’”
“What is a child doing with it? That means you are not doing due diligence rather than celebrating such incompetence and using it as a basis for throwing more than 500,000 people out of jobs.
“This ban is unfounded; it is not going to work, and it is going to deny the government the revenue that they are supposed to have. It is going to deny adults access to affordable products.
“And it is going to open a door for an alternative that will not be easy to control. How do you control ‘paraga, ogogoro’ and so many of those drinks people consume?
“Everyone of us is concerned about the environment, but the thing is that we must look for a way to create a win-win situation. We should be more imaginative about how we are going to transcend, for instance.
“Up until the time of imposing the ban, you are still licensing products; are you truly serious?
“The regulatory agencies should be more innovative; they should support the industry in transitioning to environmentally friendly packages and products.”
“Abstain from taking harmful and inconsiderate policies that lack adequate inputs from key players that would be affected.”
“Within the first two months of this year, a ban was placed on single-use plastics and Styrofoam packs by the Lagos State Government, and NAFDAC, in a similar fashion, placed a ban on alcoholic beverages in pet bottles and sachets below 200 ml.
“The negative impact of these policies on the manufacturing industries affected, as well as the huge number of workers whose jobs are on the line, cannot be overemphasized.
“Additionally, it has become pertinent for government and the private sectors to work in tandem to revamp the ailing manufacturing sector, especially at this time, by exploring homegrown policy initiatives that will address peculiar challenges.
“There is a need to mobilize our local resources and, more importantly, take deliberate steps to overcome the binding constraints that confront the productive sector.
“This has to be through frank conversations, effective collaboration, and bold decisions that radically depart from the norm.”
