MEMBERS of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria Export Group (MANEG) have said in Abuja that if the nation must address the problem of dumping of toxic products in the country, the Federal Government must immediately enacts new laws with stiffer penalties.

Speaking in Abuja at the MAN Brand Protection group stakeholders’ meeting, President of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria Export Group (MANEG), Mr. Romeo Barberopoulos noted that with the meeting, Nigeria would achieve greater millage in the battle, stressing that, “Illicit trade has been one of the banes of industrial development in Nigeria.

It is a major disaster that has grown more than 10,000 per cent over the last decades and will continue to grow if joint drastic measures are not put in place to checkmate its growth.”
According to him:

“Despite repeated protests from the manufacturers and policies from government, smuggled, counterfeit and adulterated products still find their way into our markets.

“The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines counterfeit as a product, which is deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled with respect to identify and, or, source ingredients or the packaging and presented as a known brand product.

“The increase in illicit trade adversely impacts our society in four ways. Many consumers do not know about counterfeit products, and even when they do, they are unable to distinguish between counterfeits and authentic products.

Consumers are always deceived by the very low selling prices of fake products, although this is not always true, as it happens in the case of the generic medicines.

“The existence of counterfeit products spoils the good name of genuine products and pushes them out of the market, leading to loss of sales volume, capacity under utilization, higher cost of production and depressed earnings for producers and legitimate trademark owners.

Employment is put at risk where there is no effective deterrent against counterfeiting, smuggling and piracy. Illicit and informal trade operators do not comply with government regulations and this leads to loss of revenue for government.”