The Western Regional office of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has held Nine Lessons and Carols Service in commemoration of this year’s Christmas celebration.
In his address, Mr Abu Sumaila, the Western Regional Head of the FDA said the office was able to carry out all its scheduled inspections and post-market surveillance activities within all the districts in the Western Region as well as the Western North Region where it has oversight responsibility.
He said although 2021 had been a challenging year for the Authority due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, God had been good to them as the target for the year was about 95 per cent achieved.
Touting on some of the achievements in the year under review, he said the year 2021 began with the plan of relocating the office to a convenient place which was achieved in no time, it also trained over 400 herbal practitioners in basic Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) with the hope of bringing them to compliance.
The Directorate was also able to train close to 100 sachet water manufacturers to improve on their production while public education programs and market surveillance brought a reduction in the sale of unwholesome products on the market.
He added that their efforts brought an increase in voluntary submission of applications for safe disposal of damage of unwholesome products following the intensive public education it undertook while securing office space at Sefwi Wiawso in the Western North Region hoping to be operational by the first quarter of 2022.
Mr Sumaila deemed the success to the hard work, dedicated service and teamwork exhibited by the staff and expressed the hope that staff will maintain and improve on it going into 2022.
He, therefore, commended the staff for their efforts and further commended all stakeholders, especially the media for supporting the Authority in the conduct of its activities in the regions.
However, he mentioned that a sampling of palm oil on the market revealed that some traders were selling adulterated with “Sudan dye” which was a setback to the Authority since it was unfamiliar with the region.
He pointed out that if the practice continues the Authority will have no choice but to blacklist the market in question to deter people from buying from it which may not augur well for the traders.
The Regional Head also mentioned that going into next year, his office will focus on food vending on the streets even though it has been the mandate of the District Assemblies but would collaborate with them to do Street Food Vending Licensing for public safety.
Rev Seth Williams, the Regional Accountant of the FDA and also the Head Pastor of the Nazareth Methodist Church, Nkotompo in a short exhortation admonished that the gatherings must remind us that a gift of love was given to the world to receive salvation by God.
He noted that fornication, corruption and social vices have taken the center stage of the Ghanaian society and for that matter, if Ghanaians were celebrating the birth of Christ then they should remember that Christ was born so that the world would be reconciled to God.
“As we celebrate Christmas we should be reminded that Christ might come at any moment or we may even lose our lives. Therefore, we must strive to live a godly life as we accept the gift of God, which is Christ into our lives”, he emphasized.
Story: Seth A Danquah
