THE National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), yesterday, uncovered a warehouse in Lagos containing potassium bromated tablets and an unregistered imported bread improver in Lagos, even as it warned that henceforth, any flour product containing potassium bromate will be confiscated, while the producer will be made to face the wrath of the law.
Speaking during a press conference on the arrest of the perpetrators in Lagos, the Acting Director General of NAFDAC, Dr Monica Eimunjeze explained that potassium bromate is a banned flour improver globally as it is a known cancer-causing agent.
Ejimunjeze said: “Potassium bromate popularly known as tablets in the black economy is always attractive to merchants of death who want to make an outrageous profit at the expense of citizens’ wellbeing. NAFDAC wishes to state that there are recommended healthy flour improvers approved by the Agency.
“For example, the seized tablets could be used with 300,000 bags of 50kg flour to produce about N30 million family-sized loaves of bread."
Giving insight into the raid, she said: “On 7th December 2022, NAFDAC officers raided a warehouse in the Apongbon area of Lagos Island in Lagos where they found one hundred and fifteen (115) cartons of Potassium bromate tablets. The tablets have a street value of N28, 750,000:00."
She added that the NAFDAC enforcement team also found in the warehouse counterfeit EDC Bread Improver, packed in sachets with a fake NAFDAC registration number 01-4242, worth N300,000.”