Import waiver will take time to reflect on medicine prices –PSN

President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Pharm. Ayuba Tanko Ibrahim, has raised the alarm over increasing patronage of unregistered traditional healing homes. He said this is being driven by the high cost of medication, adding that many herbal homes are now getting a boom. Ibrahim, while speaking with Daily Trust against the backdrop […]

President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Pharm. Ayuba Tanko Ibrahim, has raised the alarm over increasing patronage of unregistered traditional healing homes.

He said this is being driven by the high cost of medication, adding that many herbal homes are now getting a boom.

Ibrahim, while speaking with Daily Trust against the backdrop of the recent implementation of waiver on the importation of some active pharmaceutical ingredients by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), however, said the waiver would take time to reflect on the cost of essential medications.

The NCS had announced a two-year exemption from import duty and Value Added Tax for critical raw materials essential for the production of pharmaceuticals.

The exemption, granted under a presidential executive order, covers active pharmaceutical ingredients and other essential raw materials needed for producing medicines, long-lasting insecticidal nets, rapid diagnostic kits, reagents and packaging materials.

Speaking with the Daily Trust, the PSN president stated that about two years ago, when the president issued an Executive Order, the stakeholders thought the implementation would start immediately.

However, he stated that it is a welcome development that the waiver has been implemented, though it would take time before the high cost of medications slows.

Ayuba said, “The time the president gave the waiver, we thought it was going to be implemented immediately, but it wasn’t. It took some time. We had to protest. And recently, thank God, they say it is better late than never. They’ve done it, but the effect cannot be seen now because the waiver is on raw materials and other products.

“So we want to know if the new waiver, when it starts working, what relief it is going to give to the pharmaceutical companies and how it is going to affect the prices at the end of the day. So we have not reached there yet, but we are monitoring and we hope and pray that it will affect the prices; that the prices will come down and that will be a relief for the common man.”

He noted that the high cost of drugs is driving many people to explore alternative medicines with the “herbalists” recording a boom.

He said while some of the traditional methods had proven efficacy with appropriate registration, the majority of them were not clinically approved.