ABUJA – Dr Khaliru Al-Hassan, the Minister of State for Health, has inaugurated the Inter-ministerial Committee on Food Safety (IMCFS) and the National Food Safety Management Committee (NFSMC).
The two committees were inaugurated to tackle the menace of food-borne diseases in the country.
He said the production of National Policy on Food Safety and its implementation strategy were commendable and would tackle food-borne and other related diseases.
“A man is what he eats and a healthy nation would be judged by the safety of its food consumption,’’ he said.
He said the contribution of the stakeholders in the review of the policy made it acceptable and comparable with the international standards.
“Nigeria has a lot of ground to cover before getting to envisaged land where it will benefit fully from this policy.
“These benefits, briefly stated, include the curbing and drastic reduction of the incidences of food poisoning or food borne illness in Nigeria.
“The long term benefit of it will be the increase of our foreign exchange earnings for the country through export of well packaged food items,’’ he said.
He urged the committees and stakeholders to discharge their duties accordingly as Nigerians would like to see the dividends of implementing the policy in a short time.
Dr Patrick Kormawa, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) Country’s Representative, said the importance of food safety would be highlighted as public health and trade issue.
