Prospective entrepreneurs in Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs ), in the country now have cause to smile as the National Agency for Food, Drugs Administration and Control ( NAFDAC ) has reduced the cost of registration of products for such type of companies by 50 per cent for companies with five or less than five employees, in line with Federal Government’s policy on Ease of Doing Business ( EDB ) in Nigeria.
Speaking during NAFDAC Stakeholders Consultative Forum on Ease of Doing Business in Nigeria, held at Mambayya House, Kano yesterday, the Acting Director-General of NAFDAC.
Mr. Ademola Mogbojuri, who was represented by NAFDAC Director, Special Duties, Dr. Abubakar Jimoh, explained that the rationale behind the reduction was to encourage MSMES to solidly stand on their feet and continue to contribute their quota to the economic development of the country.
He also stated that NAFDAC has also concluded plans to reduce registration time by 90 days, adding that, “NAFDAC is to implement 50 per cent reduction in cost of registration of products for companies with five or less than five employees.”
According to him, NAFDAC has also worked out modalities for the establishment of Small Business Support Desk (SBSD) to guide small business through registration process, which will also serve as enquiry point for small business on regulatory issues.
He added that the agency has also put in place electronic submission of documents so as to reduce the amount of time and delay process taken for hard copies to get to the Directorates at the Lagos headquarters.
“To encourage MSMES, we have activated NAFDAC Product Registration Outreach (NaPRO) to provide interactive engagement and advice on documentation, labeling and other requirements so as to facilitate the registration process. We must also ensure increase in the number of time samples are submitted to the laboratory per month,” he stated.
According to him, “no fees will be charged for inspection, laboratory analysis and export licence when MSMES are exporting their products,” adding that NAFDAC will also discourage the use of consultants by companies to register products.
