ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – Following allegations of importation of fake and substandard tomato paste from China into Nigeria, a coalition of tomato dealers under the auspices of Association of Stakeholders in Edible Consumer Products in Nigeria (AECPIN) has faulted the call for a total ban on importation of tomato, saying it was a de-marketing strategy which would create a monopoly as Nigeria cannot produce enough to satisfy the need for tomatoes in the country.
The group also accused Dangote Tomato Producing Company and Erisco Foods of misleading the nation, saying allegations of fake tomato paste imported into the country was a carefully orchestrated strategy by Dangote and Ericson to enjoy monopoly.
The AECPIN, made up of 24 companies in a memorandum submitted to the House of Representatives by its leader, Mr. Ikenna Amaechi, argued that “the allegations that tomato paste brand in Nigeria are substandard and dangerous for human consumption, we state this is an attempt to cause panic in the market place and was said with malicious intent.
“Tomato does not cause cancer this much is known; so the terminology ‘cancer causing tomato’ is misleading. If there are ingredients in tomato paste that are carcinogenic, that is a different issue and it is for NAFDAC to identify those components and ban them.
“To the best of our knowledge, our products do not contain any ingredients that have been found to be carcinogenic or unfit for consumption”, the group submitted.
AECPIN further noted that “where any imported edible consumer hood is found to be dangerous, toxic or harmful to health, it is the sole duty of NAFDAC to recall such goods from the market, seal the warehouses where they are stored and sanction the culpable party accordingly. There is no record that this is so.”
The group submitted that “the argument that the tomato may have been smuggled does not hold water either because if the tomato were smuggled that means they did not go through screening and a ban on tomato will not address the issue as they have been operating outside the law ab initio. If the issue is with smuggling, then it is a wild claim to say that 91 percent of tomato paste is poisonous as it is impossible for 91 percent of tomato paste in the market to be smuggled.
“It is therefore clear that if there are any substandard tomato products in Nigeria, they did not pass through the stringent due process established by the responsible agencies; they are most probably smuggled and if they were smuggled banning the importation of tomato paste would not be the solution as the smuggling would continue as a matter of course.”
Alternatively, AECPIN said it advocates “a thorough fight against the importation of any substandard edible consumer products into Nigeria but we will not support where people will hide under contrived figures to wage a pseudo battle against its competitors. We therefore call for thorough investigation using world accepted standards to discover if there are any substandard products and apply the necessary sanctions where necessary.”
It will be recalled that Erisco Foods Limited, Dangote Tomato and Savannah Foods had last week told the House of Representatives Joint Committees on Healthcare Services and Drugs and Narcotics investigating allegations of fake tomato paste in the country that there have been official reports on the hazardous tomato paste coming into the country from Asian countries, but the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) deliberately failed to act.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Erisco Foods Limited, Eric Umeofia, who said based on a survey conducted by NAFDAC last year, 91 per cent of imported tomato pastes from China are substandard and dangerous to the health.
However, representative of NAFDAC DG, Prof Samson Babatunde Adebayo, who is the agency’s director of planning, research and statistics, dismissed all the claims and disowned the report that was paraded by the stakeholders, saying the report was unsigned and did not emanate from the agency.
He said the NAFDAC report in question did not mention that tomato pastes kill people or cause cancer, adding that when they got the information that some tomato pastes in the Nigerian markets were substandard, they carried out an analysis in Lagos.