Association of Community Pharmacists (ACP) has appealed to National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to rescind the policy of collecting Expired Drug Destruction Fee (EDDF) from its members, saying it amounts to double loss to its members and could be counter-productive.

They made the appeal on Wednesday during their 2023 yearly general meeting, which was held at The Pharmacy Villa, Ogudu, Lagos State.The Chairman, ACPN Lagos State, Lawrence Ekhator, during an interview, emphasised that paying for expired drug destruction would inevitably push people not to voluntarily submit expired drugs because of the additional cost they would incur.

He said: “We have been at loggerheads with NAFDAC and we believe it is double jeopardy for NAFDAC to collect money from practitioners, whose products have expired. So, we are losing money with the drug, we are losing money with expiry, and we are paying again.

“We are urging NAFDAC to rescind that decision and to understand it will encourage people to voluntarily submit expired products because they don’t have to pay an additional cost.”

Ekhartor stated in his address that the previous year under review was quite unproductive with regards to expectations from the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria (PCN) because the much-anticipated Pharmacy Bill, signed into law by former President, with the hope that it would bring about major reforms for the profession, failed to do so.

“The guidelines to accompany the law are yet to be made public almost two years after the law was signed in 2022. This, in turn, has reflected in the activities of the Pharmaceutical Inspection Committee (PIC) as no form of meaningful enforcement activity has taken place in the past three years,” he said.

The pharmacist expressed his concern about Effective Drug Distribution with respect to various Open Drug Markets in Lagos State and other parts of the country.

He said: “I hereby want to use this medium to commend the Federal Government, the Kano State Government, the PCN and NAFDAC on the giant strides made in Kano with respect to the Drug Market Relocation to the Ultra-modern Coordinated Wholesale Centre in the state and I therefore use this medium to call on the Federal and Lagos State Governments to follow suit in Lagos State as quickly as possible to make a very bold statement towards the sanitisation of the Drug Distribution Space in the State and by extension, Nigeria.”