WELCOME SPEECH BY THE ACTING DG (NAFDAC) MRS YETUNDE ONI TO THE STREAM B MANAGEMENT RETREAT OF DEPUTY DIRECTORS IN NAFDAC AT THE CONFERENCE HOTEL AND SUITES IJEBU-ODE OGUN STATE, NIGERIA 18TH JULY 2017.
PROTOCOLS
Dear Colleagues, I want to welcome you to this strategic retreat. Let me start by taking our minds back to the common adage which says, “Man proposes, God disposes”.
When this retreat was being planned initially, we were fixated on making it happen in June 2017 and had put all measures in place to forestall any change. But here we are today faced with a shift in dates because we needed to take into cognizance crucial factors never envisaged that may impact on its success.
Between the first retreat and this event, NAFDAC had its share of media attention on various issues bordering on:
· Standards of food additives used in the production of soft drinks manufactured in Nigeria;
· Exclusion of NAFDAC Inspectors from the Ports;
· Compliance with the Executive Order of the Acting President on Ease of Doing Business in Nigeria, amongst others.
But as life is a bicycle, we maintained a balance and kept moving on by:
· Addressing our challenges
· Improving our regulatory procedures and processes
· Improving working environment and staff welfare
· Building capacity of officers etc.
However, since we are always in consonance with the policies of government, we must always maintain a balance between our aspirations and the fresh demands on us, while moving forward.
So dear colleagues keep moving forward!
At this retreat, you may likewise experience life, as you might have come with preconceived notions about retreats but I can assure you that at this retreat, though you have been drawn out of your comfort zones, it is certainly not to harm you but to arm (equip) you for the greater tasks ahead and be “Change Agents” to truly reposition NAFDAC to greater heights and improved performance.
Distinguished Colleagues, the first Management Retreat under this dispensation held in March 2017 at this same venue. It was a huge success and the subsequent outcomes and events were confirmations of a well-organised retreat. I expect nothing less at this second batch.
But why a retreat?
Perhaps a good starting point for this retreat might be a recap of successes that have been recorded against resolutions from the last retreat. I am happy to inform us that the following have been accomplished. We have:
1. Updated quite a number of our Guidelines.
2. Increased the support for MSMEs being a policy of the Federal Government of Nigeria and as our contribution to the ease of doing business.
3. Compiled and reviewed our process flows and necessary documents for issuance of permits to importers towards ease of doing business in that sector of the economy.
4. Undertaken a User Acceptance Test (UAT) Programme of the e-processes.
5. Developed Job description for all our officers, which will enable officers to know the scope and demands of their responsibilities and offices respectively.
6. Created Outstations in Mararaba, Nassarawa State, Rano and Bichi in Kano State, Yobe and Kwara States are work in progress.
7. Re-aligned our staff and expanded job description of existing staff to accommodate shortfall of personnel.
8. Overcome delays in administrative approval for product registration.
9. Set up LOD offices dedicated to attending to Zonal/State issues and have shared their email addresses and phone numbers with all the Zonal/State offices.
10. Completed GIS information of all facilities.
11. Identified talented officers in some Directorates that can contribute positively to the Agency and they are being showcased.
The foregoing narratives might have sufficed for any other organisation but definitely not for NAFDAC, a twenty-first century Stringent Regulatory Authority and one of the two foremost Regulatory Authorities in Africa with operations guided by scientific facts and data.
Going further as shown in the table below, the forty-two (42) broad resolutions addressed seven of the focal areas of NAFDAC management namely: Technical Operations; Finance; Administration; Capacity Building; Technology Deployment, Planning and Research; Security and Intelligence and Legal.
Out of fifty (50) actionable points in the resolutions, only 10 representing 20% were delivered to time; another twenty percent (20%) totally missed their immediate execution deadlines and probably not even executed till now; while the largest portion of the sets of deliverables representing forty-four percent (44%) are ambiguously classified as ongoing.

Going to where?
The question to you my colleagues is why this performance? Could it be they were done and not reported which is a pointer to poor documentation and communication? Could it be due to lack of funding?
All these bring to mind, questions to be further addressed at this forum which is a gathering of top mind, skilled and experienced officers in the Agency.
How do we help deliver on results? How do we improve on our rate of deliverable outputs?
How do we monitor deliverables placed on the so called ‘ongoing’ timeline activities?
How do we generate funding for our activities?
How do we translate newly introduced regulatory policies into daily routine activities seamlessly? How do we document, archive and retrieve enacted regulatory policies, easily?
The questions are unending to actualize our dream of truly repositioning NAFDAC.
WE CAN AND WE SHALL.
I will like to encourage every participant at this retreat to get a copy each of my address to the first batch and also the Approved Resolutions at the first Retreat. We must never get tired of improving on ourselves and our performance; we must never be shy of telling ourselves the truth. The all inclusive policy of this dispensation is for a purpose: to give every officer an opportunity of exposure and chance to showcase and harness their skills and talents; to build a critical mass of transformed regulatory officers that will be a positive influence on the majority non-committal and further deplete the ranks of the few bad eggs in the Agency.
During this retreat:
I look forward to engaging and recruiting you to the ranks of game changers for our beloved Agency,
l look forward to you doing a self-reassessment and rededicating yourself to rendering quality service to humanity,
I look forward to you embracing the future with enough positivity and deliberate effort to add value to our system as you resume work on Monday.
I want to especially commend the efforts of the organisers and also welcome our Facilitators and give thanks to God Almighty for journey mercies.
Please while in Ijebu-Ode and being a daughter of the soil, be ready to enjoy our delicacies of ikokore and cold eba as well as melon soup. I can assure you, your taste buds will never the same!!!
Once again welcome to this retreat and thank you for your kind attention.
