The House of Representative Committee on Agricultural Productivity and Services has called for a public hearing of a Bill for the establishment of a Nigerian Pesticide Council. This was disclosed in a press release by Alliance for Action on Pesticide (AAPN), a group of civil society organizations working in the agriculture sector.
According to the group, the speedy call for the hearing of the Bill is scheduled for Thursday 9 December at 10 am.
While different Committees at various times have called for a public hearing with respect to one bill or the other, the call for this particular one has however raised some concerns. One of which is the fact that it seeks to repeal the functions of some agencies which are currently saddled with the responsibility of pesticide management in the country.
Currently, pesticide in Nigeria is regulated by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) and Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Agency (NAQS).
NAFDAC focuses on the safety of food and drug products, NESREA on the environment, while NAQS on plant, animal, and food exports.
However, with the new Bill, the functions of these three existing agencies will be repealed and locked into the proposed council.
While on the surface it looks like a brilliant idea, at least for the purpose of harmonization, a deeper look into the Bill which is scheduled for hearing tomorrow revealed the contrary.
For one, the new Bill does not make any mention of the Enforcement Agencies (NAFDAC, NESREA, NAQS) in its content for enforcement purposes.
It also reserves 2 seats for council members to be occupied by CropLife International. CropLIfe is an International Association consisting of international private companies that manufacture and promote highly hazardous pesticides in the Council of Pesticide in Nigeria.
With such an arrangement, there is a potential conflict of interest, having CropLife members seating in a National Council to Regulate Pesticide. It also raises the concern of who exactly the Bill is designed for.
Besides, CropLife promotes pesticide usage and its members are big international companies that export pesticides that are banned in the European Union because of the deadly health impact of its products on Europeans. Also its member Companies like Sygenta and Bayers have several lawsuits bordering on health and environmental damages.
A review of a copy of the Bill made available to Dataphyte shows that the Bill allows the council members to accept gifts, which has a tendency of opening the system to corruption and compromise of the health and safety of Nigerians since it is commonly said that the person who pays the piper dictates the tune.
Other issues of concern in the proposed Bill include the lack of provision for liability and redress for harms associated with the use of the pesticide and the fact that the Bill excluded NAFDAC, NESREA, NAQS, and the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Council (FCCPC) as part of the Council members.
The AAPN summed the Bill as one that is not designed to ensure public health or environmental safety.
In view of this, the AAPN has called for the halt of the Bill to allow for more time for proper review and better alignment with the existing framework. The AAPN also noted that the passage of the Bill stands the risk of duplicating the roles of agencies. This is related to the warnings in the Oronsaye Report, which flagged tendencies to paralyse existing agencies instead of strengthening them.
Fifteen issues of concerns in the Bill listed by the AAPN are listed below:
- Does not make any mention of the Enforcement Agencies (NAFDAC, NESREA, NAQS) in its content for enforcement purposes,
- The bill does not have NAFDAC, NESREA, NAQS, and the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Council (FCCPC) as part of the Council members.
- The Bill does not have any prescription on enforcement or environmental safety monitoring plans with a clear role for any of the agencies.
- The Bill reserves 2 seats for council members to be occupied by CropLife International. CropLIfe is an International Association consisting of international private companies that manufacture and promote highly hazardous pesticides in the Council of Pesticide in Nigeria. https://croplife.org/about/members/.
- CropLife promotes pesticide usage and her members are big international companies that export pesticides that are banned in the EU (due to their deadly health impact on Europeans) into Nigeria and other developing countries? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/10/toxic-pesticides-banned-for-eu-use-exported-from-uk
- Their member Companies like Sygenta and Bayers that have $million dollar law suits for health and environmental damages should not be seating anywhere near Nigeria’s regulatory counsel on Pesticide. https://croplife.org/about/members/.
- Having CropLife members seating in a National Council to Regulate Pesticide is a huge conflict of interest and raises a lot of questions on who the Bill is designed for.
- The Bill allows council members to accept gifts. This opens the system to corruption and compromise of the health and safety of Nigerians.
- The Bill has no provision for liability and redress for harms associated with the use of the pesticide.
- The Bill does not present anything new from the existing pesticide regulatory structures (except allowing the collection of gift and none mention of regulators)
- The Bill does not make provision for the phase out of Highly Hazardous Pesticides in Nigeria or those banned in the global Market.
- The Bill seems to be designed for the promoters of pesticide products and council members.
- The Bill does not compel manufacturers, importers, traders, and promoters of pesticide to provide training on their product use, provision of protective equipments to farmers, or compels them to take responsibility for the damages that arise from the use of their products (Extended Producer Responsibility)
- In summary the Bill is not designed to ensure public health or environmental safety.
- The Bill is designed to ease doing pesticide business in Nigeria. It unbundled the roles of the Agencies, and harmonizes pesticide checks into one agency. It gives a lot of power to the Minister of Agriculture – If the Minister says it is fine, that is it, no double checking.