Nigerian SMEs have cried out on the recent increase in service price by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control – NAFDAC.
According to Oluwakemi Ajiboye, a certified clinical skin therapist and founder of Crystal Shine Skin Clinic, in a bid to re-packaging her products to meet up with international standards, she discovered that the altering packaging design which cost about N10,500 per product has been hiked to N84,000, that is a whooping 80% increase.
Other prices increase as discovered are;
- Product Registration: Old rate = N73,500, New rate = N147,000
- Pack size extension: Old Rate = N10,500; New rate = N84,000
- Change in Pack design: Old Rate = N10,500, New rate = N84,000
- Cosmetics lab analysis: Old Rate = N21,000, New rate = N84,000
- Change in Product Name: Old Rate = N21,000, New rate = N84,000
SMEs contribute to almost half (48% specifically) the entire GDP in Nigeria and with this increase, a great number of small scale manufacturers in the SME sector will be affected as the increase is just so exorbitant.
We are calling on the President, DG NAFDAC and other relevant bodies to look keenly into this recent movement by NAFDAC.
A whooping 80% increase is just too much!!!
I believe The Federal Government should encourage SME not trying to kill the entrepreneurship dream, I have a friend of mine in Abia who this will really affect as he barely had enough funding to kickstart his business.
The Fed. The government should Encourage us not to milk us dry
The federal government needs to look into this urgently. This is a wrong move for small businesses.