The directive he said could result in medicine shortage in the country.
He explained that, registration of products coming from Europe, UK and America is almost impossible because the required documents are not attainable by importers.
“One requires a certificate of analysis to register these products and we are not able to get those documents,” he said.
However, we have evidence that these are products that are registered in these countries. For instance, the medicines we are bringing from the UK has a product license number which gives you detailed information about the product; information related to who registered these products in the UK and that the product is in circulation in the UK. The Medicines Healthcare Related Product (MHRP) website also gives you the product license number and detailed information about the product,” he added.
According to him, they find it difficult to get the certificate of analysis because they do not import very large quantities considering the population of The Gambia.
"For you to be able to register a product, there is a quantity you need to purchase which we cannot acquire due to the population of our country. We can only get it from registered wholesalers either in Ghana or other countries with large populations," he said.
"There is already scarcity of some medicines in The Gambia. The reason is that, some of our colleagues whose products are at the port are not allowed to enter the country because they are not registered," he also said.
