The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), on Thursday raided the Sheik Gumi Market in Kaduna, seizing unregistered and expired tomato paste, worth over N2 million.

The seizure was made from 16 shops in the market, where 75 cartons of the expired and unregistered tomato paste of various brands were seized.

The deputy director of NAFDAC’s Investigation and Enforcement Directorate in Kaduna, Tamanuwa Andrew, said the raid was in line with the 2019 ban on importation of tomato paste.

He said since the importarion ban, NAFDAC had been raiding markets for unregistered and banned tomato paste across the country.

“In September 2022 in Lagos, the Director of Investigation and Enforcement held a press briefing on the raid carried out in the state alone, where open and super markets and shops were raided and over 3,000 cartons of unregistered tin tomatoes were confiscated,” said the NAFDAC official.

Mr Andrew noted that NAFDAC would continue to discharge its duty and not shy away from its responsibilities of ensuring a healthy nation.

He disclosed that their surveillance has shown that open and super markets, and provision stores were still importing banned tomato paste through illegal ways which he described as a setback to the economy and local manufacturers.

“Since those unpatriotic Nigerians are not willing to stop smuggling those banned items, we are also not willing to stop going after them till we rid our markets of such products,” he said.

Mr Andrew further said that they would visit other markets to carry out similar exercises.

He explained that the reason why some of the food products were banned was because some of them contain substances that has cancer agents.

“In tomato paste, there is a substance called biphenyl which is dangerous for human consumption. Accumulation of the substance in the body will result in cancer,” he stated.

(NAN)