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Check registration numbers on products on market- FDA

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The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has cautioned the public to consciously and consistently check to confirm the product registration numbers on all items, especially on consumables before patronizing them.

Mrs Joycelyn Adeline Egyakwa-Amusah, Head of Food Safety Coordination and Consumer Education Department of the Authority, added: “We must all check to ensure that any consumable we purchase has the registration number.”

Mrs Egyakwa-Amusah urged the public to be vigilant and support the FDA’s effort of sanitizing the market.

“We must work to ensure that consumables are safe and healthy,” Mrs Egyakwa-Amusah told the GNA in an interview in Tema.

The FDA Officer warned unscrupulous people maneuvering and sending unregistered and unapproved products to the market to desist from the acts, stressing the Authority has intensified market surveillance mechanisms to deal with unwholesome products.

The FDA Head of Food Safety Coordination and Consumer Education Department said the Authority had vibrant teams moving from one market to the other in the various communities across the country checking all products and would deal with them appropriately.

Mrs Egyakwa-Amusah noted that although the Authority has over the years provided quality services to protect public health, “it was intensifying steps to be more proactive”.

“As for FDA we are very dynamic and we move with the times, our plan for 2023 is to improve upon our services to the public and also ensure that we intensify our activities so that products in the market are safe,” she said.

She explained that the protection of public health was done through the provision and enforcement of standards for the sale of food and other consumables in the country noting that as a dynamic institution, the authority adopts to market trend changes, upscale surveillance, and injects modern technologies into its operations to protect the public.

Mrs Egyakwa-Amusah said the Authority would upscale market surveillance to ensure that any unwholesome products which end up in the markets or shops are traced within a reasonable time, removed, and destroyed.

She said the Consumer Education Directorate of the Food Division of the FDA would roll out consistent public education on food hygiene and other related issues next year, and called on the media to support the work of the authority as a corporate social responsibility.

She said the Authority would not relent on the safety of Ghanaians as such, it would sanction any facility that failed to adhere to FDA regulations.

“We try as much as possible to give a human face to the enforcement of rules and regulations, FDA officials undertake a regular inspection to guide companies and factories on the need to maintain standards at all times.

“If we identify serious breaches, we act immediately by closing down the facility until the breach is ratified, but if we identify minor infractions we issue a directive for the problem to be resolved within a specific period,” she stated.

She added that the FDA website is very active stating all the rules and regulations in product registrations as well as proactive client service with the latest information uploaded and available to the public.

Mrs Egyakwa-Amusah called on the public, especially traders, to adhere to the rules to prevent any unpleasant situation and advised consumers to be vigilant at all times, “whatever product you buy, check all the necessary information on the product before paying for it.”

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