The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) on Friday, July 11, embarked on a market surveillance exercise in the Bolgatanga Main Market to crack down on unregistered and unwholesome products to promote public health and safety.

The officials arrived on a market day, with some of the officials spreading across the market, combing through stalls and stores for unauthorised goods. Upon sighting them, some of the traders made attempts to hide the unregistered products but got busted by the officials.

Some of the products they seized include concoctions and powders with printed male and female sex organs sold as herbal medicines, many of which are mostly marketed as aphrodisiacs and body enhancement products.

They also include ointments, hand sanitizers, and other pharmaceutical products. The exercise lasted several hours, approximately 4 to 6 hours.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) after the exercise, Acting Regional Head of the FDA Mr Abel Ndego, reiterated the authority’s core mandate to ensure the region remained in regulatory compliance.

“We have been doing our underground work to ensure that we raid the region to get rid of all forms of unregistered, unwholesome products and anything that has the potential of causing public health threats,” he said.

Mr Ndego said the Authority noticed the infiltration of unregistered and unwholesome products into the Region despite several sensitization programmes for traders over the years on the dangers and penalties for such business.

“We had earlier done some work on it, but noticed that it appears we have a lot of recalcitrants in the system who still find ways of getting these unapproved products through unapproved routes into our Region. And as part of our mandate to ensure public health and safety, it is imperative that we undertake exercises like this to ensure that we maintain the safety ratings of our region and possibly beyond,” Mr Ndego said.

Mr Jiah Jiato Juah, the Regulatory Officer 1 (RO 1) of the FDA, who led the team of officials to conduct the exercise, told the GNA that the Authority, as part of investigations to ascertain how the products entered the region, visited Senkase, a community in Northern Togo, which shared a border with Pulmakom in the Pusiga District, where the products were smuggled into the region.

Following their checks, they found out that some Ghanaian traders crossed the border to Senkase on Thursdays and Fridays to buy the unregistered products. Due to stationed FDA officers at the border, the officer noted that these products are smuggled via motorbikes through Bawku and Garu.

“We tried to find out how they bring them. Unfortunately, they don’t pass through the border because we have an officer stationed at the Pulmakom border. Our checks revealed that they use unapproved routes with motorbikes through Bawku and Garu,” he noted.

Mr Juah added that their checks further revealed that a lot of the products were also found in Dakola, a community in Burkina Faso, and smuggled into the region through unapproved routes at Paga in the Kassena-Nankana West District.

The regulatory officer expressed concern about the health implications of these unregistered products, which have infiltrated the markets, and urged residents to stay away from them. He said that despite prior education on its risks, some members of the public have been convinced to buy them.

In reaction to the FDA’s raid, a resident, Madam Rose Akaribire Atindoo, expressed excitement, saying, “I am happy with what the officers are doing.” She bemoaned the indiscriminate sale and use of unregistered and unprescribed drugs, especially tramadol, among the youth.

“I am old, and it’s sad that the young ones who should take over from us, the older ones, abuse these products and eventually die prematurely from strange health conditions,” Madam Atindoo said.