Reps committee oversights NAFDAC on budget implementation, performance

The House of Representatives Committee on Healthcare Services on Wednesday carried out an oversight exercise on the budget implementation and performance of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).

The committee was led by the Committee Chairman, Yusuf-Tanko Sununu, to the NAFDAC Headquarters in Abuja.During the oversight exercise, Sununu expressed dissatisfaction over the slow pace of execution of contracts by the agency.He said the committee would interface with all the procurement agencies and other relevant committees to look into bureaucratic bottlenecks involved in procurement processes as related to NAFDAC.

The chairman particularly urged the Ministry of Finance to grant waiver to NAFDAC and make money available to enable it carry out recruitment exercise to do its work effectively.“We have work tirelessly to ensure the provision of fund that will ensure NAFDAC carry out its mandate in line with global standards to tackle all diseases and oversee the use of drugs.

“Nigerians are now committed to receive the COVID-19 vaccine which has been certified.“I call on Nigerians to have confidence in COVID-19 vaccine, and to disabuse their minds over all the information going on on the social media.“COVID is real and we must convince ourselves that it is also preventable through vaccine, the vaccines are safe,” he said.

Earlier, the NAFDAC Director-General, Prof. Moji Adeyeye, while analysing the agency’s budget performance between 2020 and June 2021, noted that the future of the agency was somehow blink before she came in in 2017.She appreciated the House of Representatives and the Senate Committees on Health for changing the narrative to make NAFDAC strong enough to cover the lapses in drug administration.

“We are able to use effectively the money released to the agency in 2020 for optimum performance, and in 2021, we also use this allocation very well.“On government allocation, the appropriation for the agency in 2020 is N129,364,056.00, while the money released is N42,690,138.48 and utilisation stood at N42,328,901.18. Our performance for this year was 99.2 per cent.“In 2021, the appropriation is N374,183,537. 00, while money released is N228,983,651.19 and the utilisation is N140,215,750.00. Our performance for year 2021 between January to June is 61 per cent.

“The revenue of the agency is of two major types namely: Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and User fee, the IGR include sales of registration forms and administrative charges.“The user fee includes the inspection fees, vehicles, digitalisation tools and laboratory analysis fee. Only IGR attracts remittance of 25 per cent,” she said. (NAN)