The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), on Friday, confiscated alcoholic beverages packaged in sachets and pet bottles below 200ml worth millions of naira in Imo.

Some of the alcoholic beverages confiscated by the agency include: Action Bitters, Ballamour bitters and Chelsea London dry gin.

Some others are Squad 5 dark rum, Yagor milk cream liquor, Captain Jack, Banjinotu Alcoholic bitters, Tombo bitters, Big Ben, Rocket ginger, Yaahu blended gin and Eagle Aromatic Schnapps.

The agency’s coordinator in the state, Mercy Ndukwe, led the enforcement team to the popular Rotobi Market in Owerri, the Imo state capital.

Ms Ndukwe told journalists after the raid that the federal government had issued a directive banning the production of alcoholic beverages in sachets and pet bottles below 200ml.

She added that “in 2018, the agency, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health, met with the National Union of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Employees (NUFBTE), Distillers and Blenders Association of Nigeria (DIBAN) and Consumer Protection Council (CPC), among other stakeholders.

“During the meeting, an agreement was reached that companies should start packaging above 200ml.

“The committee and the agency agreed to a moratorium of five years to phase out such packaged drinks by Jan. 31, 2024.

“They also agreed to reduce production by 50 per cent by 2022.”

Ms Ndukwe added that NAFDAC had equally stopped the issuance of market authorisation to producers of alcoholic beverages below 200ml, while enforcement commenced on Feb. 1, 2024.

However, she said that most producers continued producing with expired licences or illegally.

She explained that “here in Imo, we gave time to see if they would reduce supply and sale of the particular sized products, but instead of reducing, it is increasing, which means the distillers and blenders are still producing and selling.

“We cannot watch things go wrong, especially when the deadline has elapsed. This is a policy of the Federal Government, and it must be enforced.”

She said an examination of the alcoholic beverages confiscated showed some with NAFDAC registration numbers but failed date markings like the production and expiration dates.

“This is an indication that the producers are conscious of what they are doing; it is even a violation on its own,” she stressed.

She said the agency had carried out regular sensitisation to educate the people, especially traders, on the ban and dangers of alcoholic beverages below 200ml, as well as plan to carry out enforcement.

The agency had also carried out enforcement on water producers who sell sachet and bottled water in open space at the Spibat roundabout in Owerri without regard to stipulated guidelines.

The coordinator said, “we gave conditions before we registered them, that water must be stored in cool, dry, and wooden platforms and not on bare floors, exposed to sunlight from morning till night.

“You don’t store water anyhow because the packaging materials are prone to certain reactions from sunlight.

“You may produce clean water, but it becomes contaminated during storage and distribution.

“People don’t bother to wash the sachets before drinking water, so anything on the surface of the sachet can be consumed as well.”

Mr Ndukwe advised them to erect makeshift shades and use wooden platforms if they must sell outside their factories.

“You hear the story of cholera everywhere, and we don’t want residents to fall victim.

“The enforcement is not to witch-hunt any individual or company but to safeguard the health of the nation,” she maintained.

(NAN)