The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA)
The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) will strictly enforce the prohibition of importation of unregistered products beginning next month, the Deputy CEO responsible for its Food Division, Roderick Daddey-Adjei, has said.
Speaking at a stakeholders’ meeting with freight forwarders and importers of FDA-regulated products, Mr. Daddey-Adjei said: “With effect from 1st February 2021, the FDA expects all imported regulated products to be registered prior to importation.”
According to him, the authority has put in place measures to facilitate registration of regulated products, with registration fees reduced to about 10-20 percent of the previous fees.
He also explained that a risk-based approach to expedited registration is being implemented for all regulated products.
“It is important to note that testing takes time. Hence, the earlier the products are made available for testing, the better for importers of unregistered products,” he said.
He added that products undergoing renewal of registration with no major variations could be detained at consignees’ warehouses, but warned that the authority will not allow the importation and clearance of unregistered drugs, medical devices, and substances of abuse.
Despite the requirement of registration prior to importation, over 20 percent of imports regulated by the FDA arrive at the port unregistered.
Traditionally, three main options are available to deal with such imports: re-exportation (if the product is banned or simply not wanted), seizure for destruction or safe disposal (if the product is deemed to pose a safety risk or health hazard), and detention to be brought into compliance (if the product is registrable).
Over the years, the third option has most often been applied to such imports. Ideally, unregistered imported products must be detained at the port and not allowed entry into the country until they have been duly registered.
The authority said it will keep a database of all FDA-regulated personal effects that are brought into the country. This is to keep track of all such products and to facilitate traceability when the need arises.
Importers will be required to submit to the authority a comprehensive list of the personal effects they bring along when travelling to Ghana, together with their batch codes and date marks.
The authority said it will soon publish on its website a guideline for the importation and clearance of personal effects which will, among other things, set the criteria for determining what could be considered personal effects.
