By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

Three factories located in Awada area of Onitsha, Anambra State have been sealed up by officials of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) over non-compliance with acceptable production standards.

The enforcement team of the commission during the raid of the factories on Tuesday destroyed freshly produced milk, which were in containers and being scooped into cans.

Condemning the action, the South East Zonal Coordinator of the commission, Engr Obialor Francisca Ndidiamaka, who led the enforcement lamented that the dairy products being produced by the factories constitute poison to members of the public who consume them.

She said: “We cannot fold our hands and continue to watch, while these people produce poisonous drinks and sell to unsuspecting members of the public.

“Look at the environment where they are producing, it is dirty. They pick plastic bottles from the streets, rinse them with dirty water to bottle their soya milk.

“They produce in very unhygienic environment, they package them without any form of PPEs, they just handle with their bare hands. No treated water or any form of analysis on the finished products, they just package it and sell to unsuspecting consumers.”

Obialor recalled that her team had first visited the owners of the factory to issue ‘stop production’ notice and invited the owners of the factories to their office in Awka for briefing on need to compliance with standard procedures in production, but they ignored and continued.

She added: “Section 18f of our FCCPC act empowers us to seal up premises where people are using to offer unwholesome goods to consumers, products that are hazardous.

“Those places we sealed will remain so until they comply with the provisions of the FCCPC.”

The enforcement team who were accompanied by police operatives also arrested the owner of one of the factories, while equipment and other items used in the factories were seized as evidence.

While regretting that most of the dairy products sold in the market are purely adulterated and produced in unhygienic environment, Obialor lamented that unwholesome products are increasingly flooding the market, stating that most of them constitute poison to members of the public who consume them.

She stressed that the commission will remain alive to their duties to ensure that such products do not make it to the open market.