The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has appointed Cotecna Inspection Services (CIS) as a Clean Report of Inspection and Analysis (CRIA) agent in India in a fresh push against the importation of falsified and substandard medicines.
Mojisola Adeyeye, the agency’s director-general, announced the development during a hybrid technical meeting in Lagos. She said the appointment was after reviews and restructuring of the CRIA scheme under her leadership to “strengthen the CRIA scheme, enhance efficiency, and bolster the fight against counterfeit and substandard products.”
India and China remain the two largest sources of falsified and substandard medicines entering Nigeria, according to Adeyeye. The CRIA system, she explained, plays a critical role in intercepting such products before they are shipped to Nigeria.
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Cotecna’s inclusion brings the total number of CRIA agents in India to five, while China has four agents. NAFDAC said the expansion is part of efforts to widen its regulatory net and boost efficiency in screening products from origin.
A statement by Sayo Akintola, the agency’s Resident Media Consultant, revealed that CRIA agents had, in the past five years, intercepted nearly 200 consignments that either failed laboratory tests or did not meet documentation and labelling standards. These shipments were blocked before departure from their countries of origin.
Olakunle Olaniran, director of NAFDAC’s ports inspection directorate, also disclosed that the agency has intercepted numerous regulated products based on CRIA alerts and that punitive measures have been taken against violators who attempted to bypass the system.
CRIA agents are accountable for product-specific testing, physical inspections, verification of documentation, and reporting of suspicious or failed consignments.
“All NAFDAC-regulated products require CRIA processing, except those on the exemption list,” Adeyeye clarified.
To further improve transparency and traceability, the agency has introduced PIDCARMS, a digital platform for processing and verifying all CRIA-related documentation and inspection reports electronically.
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At the meeting, Lena Sodergren, vice president of Cotecna, commended the CRIA scheme as the most robust inspection programme on the African continent, pledging cooperation.
“The collaboration between Cotecna and NAFDAC is a testament to our shared commitment to consumer safety, product quality, and the facilitation of international trade,” she said, adding that the scheme helps eliminate fake test reports, blacklisted products, and forged declarations.
Adeyeye also disclosed ongoing collaboration with the Indian government to prevent rejected medicines from being rerouted through informal channels into Nigeria.
“We want to know what happens to the medicines we rejected in India and ensure that some unscrupulous Nigerians do not connive with their counterparts over there to smuggle those same products back into Nigeria through the back door,” she said.
NAFDAC urged all importers and exporters of regulated products to liaise strictly with recognised CRIA agents before shipping goods from India or China into Nigeria.
