The
Presidential Amnesty Programme is partnering with the National Board for
Technology Incubation (NBTI) to improve the quality and certification of
agricultural and other products of its beneficiaries trained and empowered in
the agric and allied sector.
Towards this end, a
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Office of the Special Adviser to
the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator, Amnesty Programme, and the NBTI
would be signed on Tuesday in Abuja.
This is sequel to an
approval granted the Presidential Amnesty Programme by the Director General,
National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof.
Mojisola Adeyeye, to use 23 technology incubation centres allocated to it by
the NBTI for cluster manufacturing by beneficiaries of the
Programme.
This was
contained in a statement on Sunday by Murphy Ganagana, Special Assistant
(Media) to Prof Charles Dokubo, Coordinator of the Amnesty Programme.
According to him, the
centres would be used by beneficiaries of the Amnesty Programme trained and
empowered in the agricultural sector to produce their products for the purpose
of obtaining NAFDAC registration numbers with a view to enhancing quality and
acceptability of products in the market.
Beneficiaries of the
Amnesty Programme trained on production of rice, garri, plantain-flour,
plantain-chips, chin-chin, smoked fish, chicken, snail, fruit juice and
cosmetics, among others, would benefit from the partnership.
The 23
NBTI technology incubation centres approved for the Amnesty Programme to be
used by the beneficiaries are located in Edo, Abia, Imo, Ondo, Rivers, Cross
Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa and Delta states.
Apart from the MoU with
the NBTI, the Amnesty Programme Small Business Support Desk, an initiative of
the Coordinator of the Programme, Prof. Dokubo, is to ensure that all graduates
of Amnesty Programme vocational training centres trained on production of
NAFDAC regulated products are registered for safety, efficacy, distribution and
sale of their products.
The Small Business
Support Desk headed by a deputy director, Mrs. Edotimi Preye Olive, is to
foster greater understanding of NAFDAC registration procedures and also serve
as a point of enquiry for clients on regulatory issues and assist in conducting
Good Manufacturing Practice Inspection of Factories (GMPIF) to ensure that
products are produced in accordance with international standards.
Prof. Dokubo has assured
of his readiness to partner on technology incubation especially in the area of
food production, when the management of the NBTI led by the Director-General,
Dr Mohammed Jubrin, visited him in his office.
He said: “I think there is a necessity for us to work together to make
sure that we can get those certifications that will enable people to consume
what we produce, so that they will not create any harm for those who eat our
products.
“I think
there is a need for synergy between us because we do farming. I believe that if
we go through the documents and understand everything, we will sit to have an
MOU so that we can work directly with you.
“Then, we will know all
that it takes to set up other centres in the Niger Delta as most of the things
we do will equally go to those centres to be accessed and evaluated to know if
they are edible.”
Dr. Jubrin has also promised
to quickly articulate a proposal for an MoU between the two agencies that would
lead to quality food processing, production, and manufacturing businesses.”
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