The Senate said it will investigate the state of manufacturing, importation and policy guideline for syringes and needles in Nigeria.
The upper chamber, therefore, charged its Committees on Health, Trade and Investment and Customs to invite the Ministry of Health, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Ministry of Trade and Investment and Nigeria Customs Service to interface with the relevant agencies to find a solution.
The resolution followed a motion on: ‘The need to regulate the manufacturing, importation and use of syringes and needles to protect the lives and safety of Nigerians as well as the economy of the country’.
The sponsor of the motion, Ibrahim Oloriegbe (Kwara Central) said the syringe and needle manufacturing was a very strategic industry for national development, particularly in the health sector.
He noted that investment in the sub-sector was estimated to be about N64bn with a potential market value of about N100bn that could be created locally, engaging about 3000 Nigerians directly and saving the country about $150m in foreign exchange annually.
Oloriegbe expressed concern that an estimated over one billion units per annum of syringes and needles were being imported into the country, thereby making the country to lose the huge foreign exchange.
The senator further observed that despite the introduction of 75 percent import duties on imported syringes and needles, Customs was not enforcing it, leading to mass importation of cheap substandard unsterile syringes and needles.
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